Oral Answers to Questions

HOME DEPARTMENT

The Secretary of State was asked—

Prison Estate

Andrew Turner: What is the (a) design capacity of the prison estate and (b) number of prisoners therein.

Hilary Benn: On 5 July 2002, the in-use certified normal accommodation of the prison estate was 64,232, and the usable operation capacity was 71,653. As of this morning, the total prison population was 71,360.

Andrew Turner: I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that my constituents will find it much easier to support his proposal for a fourth prison on the Isle of Wight if he can promise to recruit staff and to source supplies locally, to bring the street lights and sewers on the prison estate up to adoptable standard, and—most importantly—to guarantee that released prisoners will not jump local people in the housing queue, but will be re-housed where they committed their offences?

Hilary Benn: As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the current planning application follows on from existing planning permission for a 416-place prison on the site. I understand that, next week, he will meet Home Office officials to talk about the matters that he has raised today. I am very happy to give him the assurance that, as ever, the Prison Service does all that it can to ensure that local materials are used and local sourcing is undertaken when new prison places are provided. I am aware of the particular issues relating to lighting, highways and so on that he raises. Officials are looking at them, and it certainly is our intention that prisoners will be returned to their home area when they complete their sentence.

Hilton Dawson: Although this Government have many excellent policies, is not the worst that which locks up increasing numbers of children and young people in prison? Should we not abandon that policy and ensure that the very small number of young people from whom society needs to be protected are maintained in secure accommodation under the auspices of the Children Act 1989?

Hilary Benn: As my hon. Friend will be well aware, the Government have made a particular priority of their youth justice reforms—both to speed up the time between the committing of an offence and sentencing, and to develop effective alternatives to custody for those for whom such alternatives can prove successful. I hope that he accepts that the most effective thing that we can do is to ensure that we bring effort, resources and reform to bear on reducing the chances of young people reoffending. If that proves successful, it will not be necessary for such young people to remain in custody, and they can go on to lead what we hope will be useful lives.

Vincent Cable: How far does the prison estate's design capacity take into account the need to avoid harm and self-harm among prisoners? In particular, when does the Minister propose to respond to the urgent request that I made three weeks' ago for him to look at conditions in Wandsworth jail? One of my constituents recently fell from, or was thrown from, the top storey of the building to the floor beneath, leading to critical injuries because of the lack of safety facilities.

Hilary Benn: I am aware of the specific case that the hon. Gentleman raises. It is being looked into, and I shall respond as quickly as I can. However, he raises an even more important and fundamental point—the work that the Prison Service is doing to reduce the incidence of self-harm under the safer custody initiative. At Winchester prison last week, I chaired a meeting of the round table group that is considering self-harm and suicides in prison. There has undoubtedly been a real change in the approach of prison staff, particularly in the six prisons in which the new safer custody initiative is being piloted. However, both sides of the House will share the genuine regret that, so far this year, the number of suicides in prisons has been higher than for the same period last year.

Kevin Brennan: Does my hon. Friend agree that we should send people to prison as punishment, not for punishment, and that, having punished them by taking away their liberty, we should concentrate on policies that will ensure their rehabilitation in the community? In keeping with the point that was made earlier about housing, is not the rehabilitation of prisoners, rather than simply punishing them, key to ensuring that we keep prison populations down?

Hilary Benn: I agree. The deprivation of liberty is clearly part of society's way of saying to offenders that they must be held to account for what they have done. However, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the best long-term public protection measure is to reduce the chances of such people reoffending. That is precisely why we have undertaken work in prisons to increase drug treatment and testing. Ten years ago, there was almost no such provision in prisons. It was prison officers and staff in the pioneer prisons who, by looking at the offenders before them, recognised that that was what was needed if we were to have any hope of reducing reoffending in the way that my hon. Friend has described. We are investing to make that happen, but we need to do more because, in the end, that is the best way to protect the public.

Sydney Chapman: While I do not disagree with what the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) said, is it not the case that 1 million crimes a year are committed by prisoners who have been released early? Perhaps they do not spend enough time in prison. Surely that point must be considered when assessing the broad canvas of prison sentencing policy.

Hilary Benn: As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, under the home detention curfew scheme the average period of early release is six weeks, and the scheme has a more than 90 per cent. success rate. He is right in one respect: prison is the place where we need to put dangerous, violent or persistent offenders who do not respond to the rehabilitation work that we are trying to develop. The great majority of prisoners will come back into the community and that is why it makes sense to invest in effective rehabilitation as the best way to protect the public.

Simon Hughes: Can I assume that the Minister regards the record number of prisoners in England and Wales—which has been announced in the same week as I understand we will see a further increase in crime figures—as a sign of failure, not success? If that is the case, in addition to reducing the number of young people in prison, do the Government put a high priority on taking many mentally ill prisoners out of prison and putting them into secure health service accommodation? Are the Government willing to endorse the view of the Lord Chief Justice and Mrs. Cherie Blair that courts should not send non-violent women offenders to prison at the present rate of near record numbers—to great harm to them and to society at large?

Hilary Benn: First, we will have to wait for the crime figures to be published this week. Secondly, I endorse the statement made by the Lord Chief Justice and by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor, who—while they recognise that decisions about sentences are properly matters for the courts—have made it clear to sentencers that they should look carefully at the choice of custody for those offenders for whom prison may not be the most effective form of sentence. The hon. Gentleman's point about women and other prisoners reinforces the argument about the need for effective rehabilitation, having regard to family ties and job prospects on leaving prison. Compared to the population as a whole, prisoners are more likely to have low skills, little previous employment and a record of exclusion from school. That legacy of social exclusion does not excuse their crime, but it makes a powerful case for trying to address those causes of crime to try to reduce the chances of reoffending.

Illegal Immigration

Hugo Swire: What steps he is taking to deal with clandestine immigration.

Beverley Hughes: We are working closely with the French Government to deal with the problem of illegal immigration from France, and the trafficking networks which bring so many of these illegal immigrants across Europe. We are making efficient use of intelligence to target resources against organised immigration crimes, and we are investing in new technologies to detect and deter those attempting to enter the United Kingdom clandestinely in road freight vehicles.

Hugo Swire: Does the Minister accept that the measures now proposed, which have still yet to be implemented, are too little, too late? Will she acknowledge the unacceptable strain that that inactivity has placed on the rail freight operators and the hauliers? Is this not just another example of a failure of Government policy?

Beverley Hughes: That is a bit rich coming from a member of the Conservative party, which does not seem to want us to co-operate with France or other EU countries on those measures. I do not accept for a moment that it is too little, too late. We are working co-operatively with the French in a staged and programmed way to implement increased security at Frethun and to introduce a range of measures, including improved security and identification of illegal immigrants, a joint reporting system and shared intelligence. Some of the measures that the French have worked with us to institute, including juxtaposed controls, demonstrate their commitment to work with us to tackle a joint and shared problem.

Martin Salter: Does the Minister recognise that many of her hon. Friends are fully aware that one of the major pull factors that makes this country—and especially the south of England—a target for illegal immigration is the lack of an effective ID card system? That is something about which the Conservatives appear to be ambivalent. I contend that many of my hon. Friends would welcome a compulsory system and cannot wait to see it implemented.

Beverley Hughes: The Labour Government have agreed that we need to address all the pull factors. An entitlement card, if the public wish to go down that route, could play an important role in tackling the potential for illegal working. However, my hon. Friend is right about the ambivalence of Opposition parties towards such measures. We are trying to make illegal working more difficult under measures in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill, which the Conservative party opposed. Through the institution of non-suspensive appeals for clearly unfounded cases, we are making it possible to remove people very quickly—again, the Opposition parties opposite will not support us.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady should not worry about the parties opposite.

Nick Hawkins: It appears that the Minister has a very short memory. Until 1997, thanks to the negotiations of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), there was a very effective system for returning illegal immigrants to France. The present Government changed the system, and it has taken the election of a right-of-centre Government in France to make any progress.
	Does the Minister accept that what concerns the man in the street is not only that the problems have got worse since 1997 but that the arrangements that the Government are making will introduce new procedures on French soil, paid for by the British taxpayer? As my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) said in the original question, is it not clear that what the Government have done is too little, too late, and that we do not even know whether it will work?

Beverley Hughes: At the very least, if the hon. Gentleman is going to ask a question, he should get his facts straight. The 1995 agreement—the content of which was determined by the previous Conservative Government—gave precedence to the Dublin convention in relation to asylum cases. In fact, the 1995 agreement in relation to non-asylum cases is still operational and under it we are removing more than 7,000 people a year to France. That compares with a few hundred who were removed from 1995 to 1997. This Government are bringing in effective measures to remove people, unlike the previous Tory Government, who were totally ineffective.

Rape

Michael Clapham: What plans he has to propose reforms to the law on rape; and if he will make a statement.

David Blunkett: We all accept that rape is a particularly heinous crime. The legislative framework must enable us to take firm action wherever and whenever we can. We intend to publish our proposals for strengthening legislation on sex offences and sex offenders in the autumn, and to legislate as soon after that as parliamentary time allows.
	A working group has been formed with representatives from the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the court service, in response to the joint report published on 8 April on the investigation and prosecution of rape. We recognise that there is a great deal more to do and I am very pleased that the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General are giving us their full support in dealing with the present very low prosecution and conviction rates.

Michael Clapham: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and am pleased to hear that a working party has been set up. However, as he is aware, only between 2 and 5 per cent. of rape cases result in a conviction. Research shows that as many as 80 per cent. of people who suffer this crime do not report it to the police. That is not good enough. Just last week I spoke to staff at the Rape Crisis offices in Barnsley and in Yorkshire, and was told that three factors really worry them—cross-examination procedures; the use of past histories to denigrate the character of the victim and make it appear that she encouraged the rape; and the increase in the date rape drug. Will my right hon. Friend consider referring these matters to the Sentencing Advisory Panel with a view to making progress and ensuring protection for rape victims?

David Blunkett: The figure for reported rapes resulting in conviction to which my hon. Friend referred is 7 per cent. The number of those taken to court is staggering: in 1977, 68 per cent. of defendants were found guilty; by 2000, the figure had dropped to 29 per cent. There are clearly serious issues: first, encouraging people to report; secondly, the way that they are handled; and, importantly, finding the right balance for both the male and female involved.
	My hon. Friend's question was partly dealt with by the Sentencing Advisory Panel when, earlier this year, it came down firmly on avoiding differentials between one type of rape and another, and we accept the panel's judgment. The proposed sentencing guidelines council will assist us in taking a broader look at both crime and sentences so that, we hope, we can get things right.

Andrew MacKay: Does the Home Secretary accept that recent high profile cases have made it clear that both the alleged victim and the person accused should remain anonymous throughout a trial, otherwise there is dreadful adverse publicity for people who are often found innocent? That cannot be right.

David Blunkett: It would be a great mistake if we made a judgment on the back of one case. In the case of Mr. Hann, we should be prepared to think a little during the summer and, when we make our proposals on the revision of sex offences, we should do so in the light of all the evidence. I do not think that there is disagreement about the fact that victims should remain anonymous; the real issue for all of us is whether, in the transparent society where the media expect us to be honest and open about what is taking place in relation to criminality, it would be acceptable for a particular type of perpetrator to remain anonymous when that was not the case for others. In the light of the campaign for a free society, I shall be interested to hear from Opposition spokesmen whether they feel that is the case.

Vera Baird: The cross-departmental inquiry reporting on the thematic investigation into rape was announced in April and it was said that it would report at the end of June or the beginning of July. Can my right hon. Friend give any indication of when there will be a report as to how the three relevant departments intend to take forward the recommendations made by the inspectors? Can he tell us what input the Lord Chancellor's Department had in that cross-departmental inquiry, given that the report was highly critical of the judiciary, especially its excessive readiness to include previous sexual history?

David Blunkett: My hon. and learned Friend is right: the report announcing the inquiry was published on 8 April. The action plan has been completed and we will shortly be able to publish it. I am convinced of the commitment of the Lord Chancellor and his Ministers to join the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General and me in ensuring that we get this right. Given that the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney-General and I are males, we should keep the lack of understanding of many men strongly in mind when addressing this critical issue.

Julian Brazier: Does the Home Secretary agree that the most tragic and awful rapes are those affecting children, and that we need to reconsider the operation of the court process, since it delivers an even lower conviction rate for those accused of those even more terrible offences? May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that there should be more training for judges and, in particular, that they should be discouraged from allowing defence barristers to bully and confuse already extremely frightened children and from using points of order to get the case deferred from day to day and hour to hour in order to break down a frightened and demoralised child?

David Blunkett: The hon. Gentleman and I are in entire agreement: we should and will address the need to avoid the adversarial judicial system being applied to juveniles, and I look forward to all-party support.

Acceptable Behaviour Contracts

Ann Coffey: What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of acceptable behaviour contracts.

John Denham: We believe that acceptable behaviour contracts have proved extremely useful in preventing or restraining antisocial behaviour before formal legal sanctions are taken. We have commissioned a survey of schemes in England and Wales, while conducting a thorough evaluation of the original scheme in Islington. We would certainly want to encourage the wider use of acceptable behaviour contracts.

Ann Coffey: I thank the Minister for that reply. The youth offending team in Stockport has been very active in drawing up such contracts, particularly with youth offenders whose criminal activities are accompanied by threats and intimidation. Thirty of those contracts have been signed already, and only five have been breached. I believe that they are very effective because, on one hand, the breaches have serious consequences and, on the other, a lot of positive help is given in dealing with underlying problems such as drug or alcohol abuse, or indeed school attendance problems. Will the Minister join me in congratulating those in the youth offending team in Stockport on the very good work that they are doing? Has he any plans to apply that approach to the probation service's work with adult offenders?

John Denham: We are happy to congratulate those in the youth offending team in Stockport on their work. People tackling antisocial behaviour in many parts of the country are certainly using acceptable behaviour contracts in a way that makes it very clear what behaviour is required and what action—possibly eviction from a tenancy, or a formal antisocial behaviour order—will follow if the contracts are breached. They are very effective. Acceptable behaviour contracts can certainly be used with adults, and that is being pioneered in several parts of the country. In the right circumstances, they can be as effective with that group as they can be with young offenders.

Michael Fallon: Does not the welcome use of acceptable behaviour contracts simply underline the complete failure of the bureaucratic antisocial behaviour orders, which the Government also pioneered? When will the Government get a grip on the rising tide of petty vandalism and aggressive behaviour in our neighbourhoods and parishes and introduce more local solutions such as those contracts?

John Denham: The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. Antisocial behaviour orders have been used with great effectiveness. They are particularly effective where they are used alongside acceptable behaviour contracts. The Police Reform Bill, which is currently before the House—in fact, we shall discuss it on Report tomorrow—contains a series of measures to make antisocial behaviour orders more widely and flexibly available and to enable courts to introduce interim antisocial behaviour orders so that they can be used quickly. I certainly hope that Opposition Members will do nothing else tomorrow or in another place to delay those measures being placed on to the statute book as quickly as possible, but I fear that that is their intention.

Animal Experiments

Dave Watts: If he will introduce stronger controls on animal experiments.

Bob Ainsworth: Our existing controls, under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and various regulations passed since then, are widely regarded as the most rigorous in the world, and we currently have no plans to change them.

Dave Watts: The Minister will be aware that many people are opposed to any animal experiments, but the majority believe that they should be carried out provided that they are strictly controlled. Will he assure me that the introduction of genetically modified animal technology will not increase the number of experiments carried out?

Bob Ainsworth: I cannot give my hon. Friend that assurance, but I am sure that he will be aware that there are various pressures on both sides of the equation. On one hand, the use of robotics in testing chemicals is removing the need for animal experimentation in many cases, but, on the other, he is absolutely right to suggest that the potential of some genetic procedures to develop cures for illnesses such as cystic fibrosis, cancer or Alzheimer's puts a great deal of pressure on the medical establishment. There may well be a growth in experimentation as a result of those opportunities, and I am sure that my hon. Friend and many other hon. Members would not want that development to be slowed down.

Tony Baldry: Is it not also important to underline the fact that doctors and scientists do not carry out scientific procedures on animals gratuitously and for fun? They do so because it is for the benefit of both veterinary and medical science. Many years ago, my father was research secretary of the British Tuberculosis Association. A cure would not have been found for killers such as TB if researchers had not been able to carry out scientific procedures on animals.

Bob Ainsworth: Every establishment, every procedure and every individual who is involved in animal experimentation must be licensed under our current procedures. I would hate to think that anyone was prepared to carry out unnecessary testing on animals. I am sure that that is not the case, but we need to be ever-vigilant. We need to make absolutely sure that the procedures that we have in place are rigorously enforced if we are to maintain the necessary confidence in such work. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman also understands that there are very strong feelings about that work.

Tam Dalyell: Did Home Office Ministers welcome as enthusiastically as I did the implied statement by the Government when an award was given of a CBE to Dr. Brian Cass of Huntingdon Life Sciences, which renders such important service to medical advance in this country?

Bob Ainsworth: Some of the procedures that are carried out at Huntingdon Life Sciences, at other companies and at our universities the length and breadth of the country are absolutely vital to the development of medicines that will ultimately be in the interests of humanity. We should never be slow in coming forward and saying so, and in recognising some of the truly magnificent work that is done in this area. I agree with my hon. Friend.

Norman Baker: Does the Minister share my concern that the number of animal experiments in this country—to return to an earlier point—has remained virtually unchanged since the Government came to power five years ago? We have not even properly sorted out cosmetics testing yet. Is it not time that we tried to eliminate duplicated experiments, of which there are many; that we tried to promote alternatives such as computer modelling and cell culture; and that we eliminated those experiments that are unethical, such as those that are still being carried out to test tobacco smoke?

Bob Ainsworth: The hon. Gentleman and I have many dealings together in the portfolios that we share on behalf of our two parties. If he has any evidence of unnecessary duplication of animal testing, he should bring it forward. It is no good making allegations in the House without bringing forward specifics. If he can do so, we should examine the matter and do what we can to eliminate it. We are doing our very best in the areas of publication and data sharing to make absolutely certain that unnecessary duplication does not take place. No evidence has been presented to me that suggests that it is taking place in the UK. If the hon. Gentleman has such evidence, he should bring it to my attention.

Police Service

Iain Luke: What plans he has to reform working practices in the police service.

Tony Colman: What plans he has to reform working practices in the police service.

David Blunkett: Alongside the Police Reform Bill, we were successful in reaching an historic agreement in May with the Police Negotiating Board, which has resulted in substantial proposals for reforms. Those include: competency-related pay; a deal to reduce police overtime and to switch 15 per cent. over the next three years into front-line services; the scrapping of the old roster system; changes to overtime notice periods; the introduction of extra rewards for jobs at the sharp end; a £400 uplift per increment and a shorter promotion scale; more flexible arrangements to enable officers to work part-time; and new measures to improve the management of ill-health, among other things.

Iain Luke: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. I am sure that he will agree that the introduction of special priority posts in the package of reforms to which the Police Negotiating Board agreed on 9 May will do much to help police forces up and down this country to focus more on front-line services, and to concentrate on issues and areas of significance, importance and concern to the communities and constituencies that they serve.

David Blunkett: I agree: people want to see the police on the streets—they want that reassurance—but they also want police time to be targeted and the intelligence methodology to ensure that we can bear down heavily on what all of us accept is a major problem for modern society. Many of the issues that were targeted in the first five years of this Government have been successful, and we are now succeeding with street crime and robbery. We need to be equally successful in bearing down on violence. Targeting rewards and support for those at the sharp end is part of that process.

Tony Colman: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on reaching an agreement with the Police Federation—a long awaited and long overdue agreement. Does he agree, however, that more action needs to be taken to reduce bureaucracy in police working practices, so as to get more officers out on to the streets of Putney where my constituents value them most—that is, at the sharp end?

David Blunkett: Yes, I do. Sir David O'Dowd's interim report has given us a lead in enabling us to take immediate action, but much more still needs to be done. We have slimmed down the performance indicators; we have put out for consultation slimmed-down proposals for the police and criminal evidence codes; we are introducing new technology that will be a major boon for the police on the beat and in the community; and we have introduced the back-up support necessary for forensic science. All that will enable the police to do their job more effectively. An extra 4,500 policemen and women have also been put in place over the past two years, and they will make, and are making, a difference in reducing crime.

George Osborne: Will the Home Secretary explain the change to police working practices that finds police officers in south Yorkshire reporting to a junior Education Minister who represents a north London seat and police officers in Nottinghamshire reporting to a junior Treasury Minister who represents a seat in Bolton? I know that the Home Secretary is keen on empire building, but is that not a bit ambitious?

David Blunkett: Yes—very amusing. My only advice—I need to take it myself when I read the Sunday newspapers—is not to believe a word one reads. The truth is that Ministers are not overseeing the policing of any area. They were asked if they would work with local partners—the Crown Prosecution Service, the court service, the police and those working in education and youth offending teams—to see whether we could remove any obstacles to those organisations working together. I challenge Conservative Members and any reporter who cares to do so to give me the name of anyone working at local level who has found the work of those Ministers anything but helpful.

James Paice: Does the Home Secretary agree that a fundamental feature of working practices is that they are based on the tripartite system of chief officers, the police authority and the Home Secretary working together? As we approach the Report stage of the Police Reform Bill, to which he and the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety have referred, will the Home Secretary accept that there remains a fundamental belief that, especially under clause 5, he is seriously damaging the tripartite arrangement? Does he understand that, contrary to the comments that the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety just made, we are not seeking confrontation. The crux of our concern is who runs the police service. Its independence is derived from the tripartite system. Even at this late stage, may I invite the Home Secretary to come to the House with amendments to clarify that he will not seek further powers to direct or overrule chief officers or police authorities as they carry out their duties?

David Blunkett: I am very happy to come to the House with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Crime Reduction and Community Safety to ensure that we clarify exactly what is meant so that there is no mischievous misunderstanding. Let me get the position absolutely clear. Chief constables are operationally independent, and no one is challenging that. Police authorities have a role. I understand that Opposition Members wish to enhance that role, and I am happy to assist in that. As Home Secretary, I am responsible to the British people for the resources used and the statistics bandied about, and there have to be some levers to pull. That includes being able to ask for an action plan, to comment on an action plan and to expect the police authority to work with the chief constable on implementing an action plan. Anyone who challenges that simple and perfectly innocent approach is simply causing mischief rather than helping us to do the job.

Tony Banks: May I remind my right hon. Friend that on Friday evening, Mr. Alan Musgrove, a constituent of mine, was gunned down on his doorstep in front of his family? It was the fourth such assassination in my part of east London, Forest Gate, but no one has been brought to justice for any of the incidents. The newspapers say that he was "shot by mistake", which gives rise to the question whether anyone can be correctly gunned down on their own doorstep.
	May I inform my right hon. Friend that in certain parts of this country, including east London, guns have become almost a fashion accessory that people carry for fun? Is it not time that the Government considered the routine arming of all police officers throughout the country?

David Blunkett: No, although I agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's question. As a result of the growth in gun crime, it is necessary in London and elsewhere to reinforce Operation Trident. We need to work with the communities that are most affected by gun crime and those most likely to be the perpetrators of gun crime. We must ensure that we clamp down on the ownership of guns, but arming all our police force would not help us in that endeavour in any way.

David Cameron: Further to the baffling reply that the Home Secretary gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), if individual police forces are not reporting to individual Ministers, and if those Ministers do have a role in the street crime initiative, will he tell us, as someone who is keen on making announcements, when that was announced to the House, and how that novel form of accountability is meant to work?

David Blunkett: Some people are more difficult to baffle than others. Ministers do not have to report to the House on a day-to-day basis to demonstrate how helpful they can be in ascertaining facts from a local level—after all, that is what we are here for. They receive messages on how to unlock blockages and ensure that mistakes are overcome rather than repeated. Ministers ensure that legislation comes before the House to make the police, the Crown Prosecution Service or the court service work better.

Prisoner Rehabilitation

Tom Clarke: If he will make a statement on his plans to ensure resettlement and rehabilitation opportunities for former prisoners.

Hilary Benn: We are investing, on average, some £60 million a year in education and offending behaviour programmes in prisons. We are working closely with Jobcentre Plus on increasing the number of prisoners who find work or training on release. We are also piloting support for short-term prisoners and those who misuse drugs. Accredited programmes have been shown to reduce reoffending by between 5 and 15 per cent.

Tom Clarke: Does my hon. Friend agree that as long ago as 1993 organisations such as the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders became increasingly concerned about the dramatic increase in the number of women sent to prison? Although we know that the Government cannot intervene in the sentencing of individuals, will the Department continue to have an input into sentencing policy? Given that a fairly large number of young children are put in care because their mothers are sent to prison, does he accept that the problem calls for the utmost sensitivity, not ideological backlashes?

Hilary Benn: I very much agree with my right hon. Friend's point. One of the saddest features of the female prison population is that 37 per cent. of sentenced women prisoners have attempted suicide. Women prisoners have access to the full range of programmes available in prison and we are looking for ways to make those more appropriate to their particular needs.
	My right hon. Friend rightly referred to the particular burden of caring responsibilities faced by women prisoners, and ideas such as intermittent custody, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State talked about in his speech earlier this year, would be particularly appropriate for them given what we know about the importance, both for the prisoners and for their families, of maintaining family links wherever possible.

Alistair Burt: Will the Minister do all that he can to recognise and support the work of Christian groups such as the Kainos community, which operate in prison with the support of prison authorities to ensure that the spirit and character of prisoners is not neglected in their preparation for successful release?

Hilary Benn: I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman's point. One really heartening development in the past few years has been in the links between the Prison Service and the voluntary sector, which works in many prisons providing a wide range of support. One of the pleasures that I had in this job recently was attending a conference organised by CLINKS at the Design Centre in Islington, where 500 people came together to talk about that work. They discussed how the Prison Service can learn from the contribution of the voluntary sector in maintaining precisely the qualities and sense of spirit that the hon. Gentleman talked about and also how the voluntary sector can learn from the Prison Service.

Glenda Jackson: Are not existing rehabilitation programmes closed to many prisoners who are repeat offenders by virtue of the fact that they are usually in prison for a very short time? Another factor, particularly for women prisoners, is the fear that they may lose their home as well as their family. Does not the Home Office need to work closely with other Departments to ensure that such a situation does not arise?

Hilary Benn: My hon. Friend is entirely right. These are matters that the recent social exclusion unit report drew to our attention. We need to do more, particularly for prisoners serving short sentences. When I was at Winchester prison last week, I was very impressed by the team of three prison officers who are delivering the custody-to-work programme in that institution. They are enthusiastic and hard working, and they are making links with employers outside the prison because they recognise as much as anybody else does the importance for prisoners of finding employment opportunities once they leave their care.

Dominic Grieve: I am sure that the Minister will agree that no group requires resettlement and rehabilitation more than 18 to 20-year-olds, of whom some 72 per cent. commit further offences within two years of release. Does the Minister agree that structured programmes are needed and that they must be consistent? If early release is brought on by overcrowding rather than being planned and if we have "going straight" contracts that are not part of an integrated programme, we are going in the wrong direction because we are pushing young offenders back out into the community before they have been properly prepared for it.
	I am happy to hear that the Minister likes Kainos. Why, then, are Kainos programmes being closed down?

Hilary Benn: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that if we do not have integrated programmes for young offenders, we will not make the progress that is required. That is precisely the point that was made in the social exclusion unit's report. That is why the community sentences developed by the national probation service can include intensive supervision, offending behaviour programmes, drug treatment and testing orders, work in the community and the use of tagging. The availability of those instruments enables us to construct a sentence in the community that is effective in working with young people.
	We need to learn from the lessons of the youth justice programme, which in its first year, as hon. Members will be aware, has led to a reduction in reoffending of 14.6 per cent., whereas the target was for a 5 per cent. reduction over the first four years. All hon. Members will take pleasure in the fact that, on those initial indications, the approaches seem to be working, and we need to develop them elsewhere in the offending and prisoner population.

Refugee Resettlement

Bill Rammell: If he will make a statement on his plans to develop a refugee resettlement programme with the UNHCR.

Beverley Hughes: In the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill now going through Parliament there is a provision to introduce a resettlement programme that will enable those refugees whose life, liberty or security cannot be protected to be brought safely to the United Kingdom and provided with protection. That will provide a legal route for those seeking international protection and is further evidence of our practical support of the refugee convention.

Bill Rammell: I thank the Minister for that response. Does she agree that that programme can be one of the ways by which we cut off the supply to unscrupulous human traffickers, opening up a legal migration route within the country of origin? Over the longer term, will that not reduce the number of unfounded asylum claims in this country, and does not the programme demonstrate the need for more effective international co-operation on these issues?

Beverley Hughes: Resettlement is a humanitarian measure to provide protection and a legal migration route, and it has been welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House and by refugee organisations. My hon. Friend is right that it will help to keep people out of the clutches of the organised criminal gangs who are fuelling almost all the illegal immigration across the EU. In the longer term, and in the context of international co-operation and common systems, it could have a beneficial impact on levels of illegal immigration and unfounded claims. We need to keep up the pressure to bear down on illegal immigration and people trafficking, and that, too, requires international co-operation, including co-operation with source and transit countries.

Anne McIntosh: Will the hon. Lady tell the House how she intends to respond to the high commissioner's offer to visit Sangatte to see which refugees should come to this country? Against the background of £5 million being made available to improve the security fence at Frethun, what guarantee have the Government been given that Sangatte camp will close?

Beverley Hughes: We welcome the offer of assistance from the UNHCR and the fact that it sees a potential role for itself in such situations. Decisions about the way forward will of course be taken by the UK and French Governments together.
	The financial contributions to accelerate the provisions at Frethun and in northern France represent a good investment, because they will enable British business to get its freight through much faster.
	On the closure of Sangatte, both Governments have said that they foresee that that will be necessary as part of the package of measures that we are working towards.

Ann Clwyd: May I say how pleased I am that the Government are taking seriously the offer made by Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, when he was here last week? He came to the House to talk to us about refugees, and offered to break the deadlock between Britain and France on that issue.
	I was in Sangatte—not in the camp, but the village—just a few weeks ago. I walked around and talked to little groups of people, mostly men, on the beach and in the streets. They were mainly from Afghanistan and Iraq. When I asked why they had left, some of them said in the little English that they spoke that Saddam was a bad man; one man held two fingers to his head. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we sort out who is and who is not a refugee as quickly as possible?

Beverley Hughes: If there was a deadlock, it was broken a few weeks ago when my right hon. Friend met his French counterpart and introduced the first package of measures. Those discussions have been continuing at official level and will be resumed on Friday this week at a meeting between my right hon. Friend and French Ministers.
	As I said, I welcome UNHCR's seeing a potential role for itself. I have to say to my hon. Friend that that must include help with some of the most difficult aspects of the situation, especially in relation to returning people and to the growing problem of children and young people arriving unaccompanied in the area. That is a very difficult issue. If UNHCR is willing to help us with those two matters, we will be glad to receive that help.

Drug Awareness

John Robertson: What initiatives he is taking to promote drug awareness.

Bob Ainsworth: Raising awareness of the dangers of drugs is a main focus of the national drug strategy. Educating young people and protecting them from the risks and harm of drug misuse is a high priority. Most schools now provide substance misuse education and parents are given information about where to get help. In December, I launched the first in a series of drug awareness campaigns promoting the national drugs helpline. The campaign resulted in substantial increases in numbers of young people contacting the helpline for advice and assistance.

John Robertson: I thank my hon. Friend for his answer. He will be aware that 50 per cent. of 16 to 24-year-olds have at some stage indulged in illegal drugs. As he said, one aim of the national drugs strategy is to reduce drug taking among that age group. Does he agree that former addicts are sometimes the best people to explain—rather than preach about—the pitfalls of taking drugs? Will he ensure that that will become an undertaking of this Government, and that such people will be allowed to go into schools to explain the problems?

Bob Ainsworth: My hon. Friend hits on a very important area. I do not believe that preaching to young people works or has the desired effect. I know from personal experience, having listened to a former addict explain some of the difficulties that they had experienced and managed to overcome, that such intervention is one of the most powerful weapons. I am sure that people with such communication skills would be happy to help where we could use them appropriately. They could have a great effect on the young people to whom they manage to talk.

Oliver Letwin: Is the Minister aware that he and the Home Secretary have indeed taken a huge initiative to promote drug awareness? Has not his Brixton experiment promoted awareness among young people that the Government want to send mixed messages on the persistent use of cannabis, and promoted awareness among drug dealers that Brixton is the place to be? How will either of those forms of awareness contribute to reducing drug dependency in this country?

Bob Ainsworth: We have had quite a debate on drugs over the past year since my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary appeared before the Home Affairs Committee and asked for an adult debate on the issue. In some ways, we have managed to increase awareness of the effect of different substances and the harm that they cause. By misrepresenting the situation in Lambeth, the right hon. Gentleman is not helping the debate at all.
	The overwhelming consensus is that both the police and the residents of Lambeth face most difficulty with the class A drug market. We need to take effective measures against that, and we are doing precisely that. There is no mixed message. The message is this: all drugs are harmful but class A drugs are particularly dangerous—and that is where our main attention should be aimed. The right hon. Gentleman knows that and ought to behave responsibly during the debate.

Oliver Letwin: Is there not one other form of drug awareness that the Minister would accept that he and the Home Secretary have failed to promote: the awareness of the public about the true nature of what they are proposing? The Home Secretary has leaked that he will double sentences for cannabis dealers. At present, cannabis is a class B drug, and the maximum sentence is 14 years. If, as leaked, he universalises the Brixton experiment by moving cannabis to class C, the maximum sentence for dealing in it would naturally be reduced to five years. If the Minister multiplies that by two, the maximum sentence will, I gather from mathematicians, be 10 years. Will he explain to those of us who are not mathematically inclined how a move from a 14-year maximum sentence to a 10-year maximum sentence constitutes doubling sentences for cannabis dealers?

Bob Ainsworth: The right hon. Gentleman ought to try to concentrate on the issues of substance instead of playing games with figures. The position is clear and has been for a long time. There has been an extensive debate in the Home Affairs Committee, in which members of the right hon. Gentleman's own party participated, where evidence was taken from everybody. Advice has also been given by the Standing Medical Advisory Committee, and we shall discuss with the police and announce to Parliament in the near future our exact proposals on reclassification and all its ramifications. I look forward to the right hon. Gentleman making a constructive response to that.

Points of Order

Ann Clwyd: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry not to have given advance notice, but have you received any information on whether the Government intend to make a statement on progress on the Palestine-Israel peace process? Are we to get an opportunity to question the Foreign Secretary on the continuing export of arms to Israel via the United States or any other country? Those matters are important and the House will want some discussion of them before the recess.

Mr. Speaker: I have not had any approach from any Minister.

Tony McWalter: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have given prior notice of my point of order, albeit late—I was still hoping to hear from the Member involved. You will be aware, Mr. Speaker, that there is a meeting in Room 8 at 6 pm, organised by someone styling himself as the parliamentary spokesperson for Hemel Hempstead. The invitation, bearing the portcullis of the House of Commons, has gone out to every new elector in my constituency from a Member representing another constituency. I should be grateful, Mr. Speaker, if you would inform me that such a prima facie breach of privilege should at least result in my being invited to that meeting so that I can meet my own constituents.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has sent me a letter, which my secretary received while I was dealing with questions. I promise to look into the terms of his letter with urgency.

Malcolm Savidge: Further to the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), Mr. Speaker. Given the importance of the issue which, I believe, has been dealt with in a written answer by the Foreign Secretary, is it still in order to seek to ask a private notice question on the issue tomorrow?

Mr. Speaker: Any hon. Member is entitled to submit a private notice question before 12 o'clock, but it is at my discretion whether I grant that.

BILL PRESENTED

Health (Air Travellers) (No. 2)

Mrs. Cheryl Gillan, supported by Mr. Charles Hendry, Mr. David Wilshire, Dr. Julian Lewis, Mr. Julian Brazier, Mr. Stephen O'Brien, Mr. Peter Luff, Mr. John Randall and Miss Anne McIntosh, presented a Bill to make provision for research and development, and dissemination of information and advice, relating to flight-related deep vein thrombosis and other medical conditions affecting air travellers; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 July, and to be printed [Bill 165].

EMPLOYMENT BILL[LORDS](PROGRAMME)

Ordered,
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Employment Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 27th November:

Consideration of Lords Amendments

1 Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Bill shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at Seven o'clock on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

Subsequent stages

2 The proceedings on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.—[Mr. Heppell.]

Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Employment Bill

Lords amendments considered.

Mr. Speaker: I must draw the attention of the House to the fact that privilege is involved in Lords amendments Nos. 1, 2, 4, 7, 9 to 15, 17, 21 to 24, 76, 77 and 79, which are to be considered today. If the House agrees to these Lords amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.

Clause 2
	 — 
	Statutory Paternity Pay

Lords amendment: No. 1.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
	In Committee, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) voiced concern that the Bill as drafted may not clearly give effect to our policy intention on an employer's liability to pay paternity pay to an employee in certain circumstances. Such circumstances were those in which an employee leaves his employer's employment at some point before the child is born, or placed in the case of adoption.
	I undertook at the time to examine clause 2 closely to ascertain whether any amendments were needed to give effect to our policy intention in that regard. I do not think that there was or is any disagreement about the fundamental policy intention—that is, that it would not be right for an employer to be liable for payment of paternity pay to an ex-employee who had left his or her employment some time ago. However, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge made a valid point, and we agree that the Bill as drafted did not set out the policy unambiguously.
	The hon. Gentleman will have noted that our package of amendments subsumes some of those that he suggested in Committee, but that, to give full effect and ensure consistency throughout the Bill, they are somewhat more comprehensive. We tabled this group of amendments in the other place, and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that they make it crystal clear in the Bill that an employee will be entitled to statutory paternity pay from an employer only if he or she is working for that employer up to the date of birth or placement of the child, and not if he or she has left that employer's employment at some point beforehand.
	Amendment No. 22 stands slightly apart and simply tidies up part of new section 171ZE to ensure greater consistency with statutory maternity pay and statutory adoption pay.

Philip Hammond: I am grateful to the Minister for his remarks so far. He is right that this set of amendments clarifies beyond doubt the aim of the Bill. The concerns expressed in Committee arose because the language used in drafting the Bill had been picked up from other legislation dealing with statutory maternity pay.
	Statutory maternity pay covers a considerably longer period than that proposed for statutory paternity pay, and some of the expressions used in the original drafting language implying that a person who went on statutory leave had ceased their employment might be appropriate phraseology where the person will be away from the workplace for a period of months, but members on both sides of the Committee, including the Minister, felt that the wording was not appropriate if the person is to be absent from the workplace for a maximum of two weeks. The Minister said at the time that he would study the wording carefully and ensure that what was written into the Bill did indeed give effect to the policy intention, about which there was never any doubt in anybody's mind.
	That is a good example of the way in which consideration in Committee often throws up valuable insights into drafting. The draftsman clearly understood what he was being asked to do, and for understandable reasons modelled the wording on that for the statutory maternity pay regime, but it was evident to those of us who were not involved in the drafting process and who were reading the Bill as laymen that there was the possibility of misinterpretation of the language used in the clause. I am pleased to say that the amendments tabled by the Government in the other place, which went rather farther than the amendments proposed by the Opposition in Committee, clarify eligibility in relation to former employment and leave anyone who reads the Bill in no doubt about the intention.
	Graciously acknowledging the validity of the points that we had raised, the Minister said in Committee that, having considered the matter,
	"we will either table the hon. Gentleman's amendment"—
	that is, my amendment—
	"giving him the credit and royalties that he deserves, or a similar amendment that will clarify what we are saying."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 10 January 2002; c. 328.]
	The Minister is generous in the extreme, but I have to tell him that no brown envelope has yet come winging its way to me with any royalties.

Alan Johnson: Blame the post.

Philip Hammond: The Minister anticipates the remark that I was about to make. He is, of course, an expert on these matters, and with or without credit and royalties, I am delighted that we have resolved the issue.
	However, a second substantive point arises from this group of amendments. I will call it the motive test. One of the amendments deletes subsection (2)(c) of new section 171ZA to the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, which stated:
	"that he has ceased to work for the employer, and done so for the purpose of caring for the child or supporting the mother".
	The same provision is deleted in relation to birth and adoption entitlements. Clearly, the primary reason for such deletion is that the reference to ceasing to work for the employer is no longer relevant as a result of the substantive amendments in the group, to which the Minister referred. On the face of it, however, that leaves us without a motive test. It was always intended that paternity pay would be payable only where the purpose of taking the leave was caring for the child or supporting the mother in the case of birth, and caring for the child or supporting the adopter in the case of adoption.
	The amendments provide an alternative method of introducing a motive test, but they include it in a different provision: new section 171ZE to the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, which deals with rate and period of pay. It seems that we are being asked to delete the concept of a motive from the definition of entitlement and to put the motive test back into the new section that deals with the rate and period of pay. As I understand it, the effect is that under new section 171ZA—and, indeed, under new section 171ZB in relation to adoption—somebody could be entitled to maternity pay, but might not receive it because section 171ZE reintroduces the concept of a motive test at the point at which payment is dealt with.
	Has the Minister thought through the question whether there are any implications of moving the motive test from the sections dealing with entitlement and including it instead in new section 171ZE? The provision could have been left where it was; there is no reason at all why the motive test could not have remained in new sections 171ZA and 171ZB. Presumably, somebody has taken a conscious decision to reinsert it in a different place, and before we decide how to proceed, I would like to be sure that that has no significance.
	While we are dealing with these amendments, perhaps we could again touch on the issue of policing and enforcement, about which we had a little discussion in Committee. Clearly, new section 171ZE includes a motive test that will apply before payment is to be made. I am concerned to ensure that employers are not required to police the test and make what could be very difficult subjective judgments about whether the employee intends to care for the child, mother or adopter in taking statutory leave and receiving statutory pay.
	In particular, will the Minister explain how he intends to ensure compliance with that motive test? For example, will a self-certification requirement be included in regulation, so that an employee who announces his intention to take statutory paternity leave and asks his employer to pay statutory paternity pay will make some form of simple declaration to the employer to the effect that he intends during the course of that leave to care for the child, mother or adopter? In those circumstances, I would imagine that the employer would be exonerated if it turned out that the employee had gone on a fortnight's holiday to Las Vegas during the period of statutory paternity leave. Any redress against the individual would be a matter between the Inland Revenue as the reimbursing authority and the person taking the statutory leave and receiving the statutory pay.
	I hope that it is clear that the Government are not seeking to place employers in the invidious position of having to delve into the personal living and family support arrangements of their employees. There must be some arrangement whereby the employer can be clear as to the course of action that he has to follow, without any risk of redress, or of finding that the Inland Revenue has refused to reimburse an amount that he has paid in good faith following an employee taking statutory paternity leave, on the ground that the employee did not satisfy the motive test now being removed from the new section.
	I would be grateful if the Minister could deal with those questions. Then we can see how to proceed.

Alan Johnson: Apart from the royalties question, I did give due credit to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. It was an exemplary Committee in the way in which various items were raised. It was scrutiny at its best—[Interruption.] "Hear, hear" say members of that Committee.
	The hon. Gentleman raised the point about the motive test. As he mentioned, amendment No. 21 seeks to ensure that pay, like leave, should be available only where the employee has taken time off work for the purpose of supporting the mother or caring for the child, which would otherwise have been lost from the drafting. That provision is reinstated in the new section relating to the rate and period of pay. It would be unusual for someone to seek to take two weeks off work and not seek to be paid for those two weeks. We have looked at this very carefully and we are confident that the change does not lose the important point that we were trying to preserve: there has to be a genuine motive for taking the leave.
	On the issue of self-certification, we do not believe that this is different from any other form of leave. Employers should not be asked to delve into the private concerns of their employees; it was an important principle that we established. Would someone claim for two weeks paternity leave and take that two weeks in Las Vegas? That it is unlikely. Even when we have finished applying the biggest increase in maternity leave, which is mirrored in paternity leave and maternity pay, since 1948, paternity leave will still be up to the grand total of £100 a week.
	It is unlikely that someone would seek to use paternity leave to holiday in Nevada. Nevertheless, if they do try to do that, it will be a matter for the employer to deal with in the normal way—as a disciplinary matter. People who seek to take other forms of leave when they are misleading the employer are in the same position.

Philip Hammond: The Minister says that it would be a matter for the employer to deal with as a disciplinary issue, but to the extent that the employer is being reimbursed by the Inland Revenue, it strikes me that it is more a question of fraud against the Revenue than a matter of direct economic concern to the employer. Is the Minister saying that it will be left entirely to the employer to police the provision and to take any necessary action?

Alan Johnson: No, I am not. I am saying that, in terms of the checks that are carried out, if an employer obtains evidence of an employee taking leave in a way that is not covered by the Bill, it would be a disciplinary matter for the employer to deal with. The Inland Revenue, on the other hand, would use the cruel and unusual punishments that are open to it to pursue an individual along those lines. I am not saying what the hon. Gentleman suggested at all.

Mark Prisk: There will clearly be a transfer of money in terms of payments. Has the Minister made a regulatory impact assessment of the administrative costs to businesses—particularly small businesses—of the changes?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman returns to a theme that we know well from Committee. I remind him that the response from small businesses was overwhelmingly positive in respect of adoption leave, to which the provisions also apply, because an adoptive parent can take two weeks paternity leave. In fact, their biggest single comment was that this should have happened a long time ago. On paternity leave, there was complete acceptance that it was right that fathers should have time to spend with their new-born babies. The basic point that businesses made was that they should not be expected to pay paternity leave. They also made the point that the Government should expand the number of small businesses that would be able to claim back 105 per cent. of maternity and paternity pay—the two rules are mirrored. We have taken into account the views of small businesses in all those respects.

Mark Prisk: My question was on administrative costs, not on the pay itself. I understand what the Minister has said on that point, and I share those motivations, but I am seeking an answer on the costs and administrative burdens now being put before the House that have come from the other place.

Alan Johnson: On the amendments carried in the Lords, we are doing precisely what the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge asked us to do, which is to make it absolutely clear that when individuals take such leave, the only responsibility that the employer will have will be for existing employees. There was some ambiguity in the previous wording, but small businesses will welcome the changes.

Philip Hammond: The Minister has just referred to employers being able to recover 105 per cent. of the amounts paid to employees. For the avoidance of any ambiguity, will he confirm for the record that that is 105 per cent. of the amount paid, to include the employer's national insurance contribution, so that it will, in fact, be less than 100 per cent. of the cost to the employer that is being recovered?

Alan Johnson: Yes, I confirm that. It will work out at about 104 per cent. when the complex statistics are taken into account.
	I thank the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge for recognising that we have sought carefully to take his views into account and incorporate them into the amendments. He should be reassured by the fact that our moving the provision on motivation from amendment No. 21 to another part of the Bill still secures the basis of that motivation.

Philip Hammond: As the Minister is obviously about to finish, may I ask him specifically to give an assurance that an employer acting in good faith making a payment of statutory paternity pay will not find himself unable to get reimbursement because the Revenue has determined that the employee does not satisfy the motive test now being inserted into new section 171ZE?

Alan Johnson: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will not give him an answer now; I will look into the matter to make sure that that is the case, and I will write to him.
	Lords amendment agreed to. [Special Entry.]
	Lords amendments Nos. 2 to 24 agreed to. [Some with Special Entry.]

Clause 16
	 — 
	Interpretation

Lords amendment: No. 25.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move that this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Speaker: With this we may take Lords amendments Nos. 38 to 45, 61, 76, 77, 79 and 81 to 87.

Alan Johnson: The amendments, although not related, are all technical, which is why they have been grouped together.
	Lords amendment No. 25 corrects an oversight on our part by including the equivalent of the Department of Trade and Industry in Northern Ireland, the Department for Employment and Learning, in the data-sharing provisions. The Department for Employment and Learning, like the DTI, may need access to high-level statistical information to assess how the schemes are working. The term "the Department" is defined in clause 16; our amendment simply includes the Department for Employment and Learning, as well as the Department for Social Development, in the data-sharing provisions.
	Although many of the Bill's provisions do not extend to Northern Ireland, we expect that Northern Ireland will make its own provisions for paternity and adoption leave and pay. We also expect that the Inland Revenue will be responsible for the operation of those schemes, as it will be in Great Britain. Because the Inland Revenue's responsibilities are UK-wide, however, we have to legislate in a Westminster Bill to enable it to take on these responsibilities. Clause 16 is one of the provisions that must therefore extend to Northern Ireland.
	The Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland has responsibilities equivalent to those of the Department for Work and Pensions in Great Britain, and the Department for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland is the equivalent of the DTI in Great Britain. The same good reasons why the Inland Revenue and Departments in Great Britain may well need to exchange information on statutory paternity and adoption pay apply equally to the Inland Revenue and Departments in Northern Ireland. The amendment ensures that Departments in Northern Ireland will be able to take a joined-up approach to statutory paternity and adoption pay, in the same way as Departments in Great Britain.
	Lords amendment No. 38 is a technical amendment that reverses the order of clauses 32 and 33. Clause 33 deals with the presentation of complaints to tribunals. It makes sense for it to precede clause 32, which is about consequential changes to time limits for making complaints to tribunals. Clause 32 also refers consequentially to schedule 4, but it is clause 33 that introduces that schedule.
	Lords amendments Nos. 39 to 45 are minor technical amendments to clause 37, which allows employers to use a letter of engagement or a contract of employment to satisfy the requirement to provide employees with a written statement of employment particulars. As a written statement must give a date by reference to which it operates, an alternative document intended to fulfil the same function must also give such a date. However, the original text of clause 37 refers only to
	"the date of the document".
	That might have led to uncertainty, as the date of any particular contract of employment may not always be clear.
	Lords amendments Nos. 39 to 44, taken together, clarify the position. They provide that when an alternative document is intended to fulfil the written statement requirements, the date by reference to which it operates for that purpose is the date on which it is given to the employee. New section 7B(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 serves no useful purpose once the date of the alternative document has been clarified by Lords amendments Nos. 39 to 44, and it is therefore removed by Lords amendment No. 45.
	Lords amendment No. 61 provides that clauses 45 and 46, relating to fixed-term work, will come into force as soon as the Bill receives Royal Assent, thus allowing the fixed-term regulations to be laid immediately. That will give employers and employees more time to prepare for their coming into force, which should ensure compliance with the regulations. Lords amendments Nos. 76 and 81 to 84 are technical amendments to schedule 7. They simply ensure that the appropriate minor and consequential amendments concerning statutory paternity and adoption pay are made to the Social Security Administration Act 1992 and the Employment Rights Act 1996.
	On Report in the other place, Lord Sainsbury of Turville introduced five amendments—Nos. 77, 79 and 85 to 87—relating to clause 47, which deals with flexible working. They concern an exemption for the armed forces, and the provision by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service of binding arbitration in cases where employer and employee cannot agree.
	Lords amendments Nos. 85 to 87 relate to the proposed exemption of the armed forces from the flexible working provisions. As was explained in the Lords, the Bill as previously drafted applied those provisions to the armed forces, but because all members of the armed forces are—uniquely—liable to operational deployment at little or no notice if national interests so require, it was impractical to apply long-term flexible working arrangements, as envisaged in the new right to request. Accordingly, we concluded that the new provisions should not apply to them.
	It is worth noting that the armed forces will continue to seek to comply with the spirit of the legislation, subject always to overriding operational requirements. They fully recognise the benefits of flexible working to individuals and their organisations.

George Osborne: I understand that the armed forces have overriding operational requirements, but does the Minister accept that many private businesses also have such requirements, and that they cannot simply give time off to employees who want to take a holiday at a given moment?

Alan Johnson: The work and parents taskforce—which consisted of representatives not only of business, but of small businesses in particular—recommended that the right to request be extended as widely as possible. I accept that there are difficulties for businesses, but we and the taskforce successfully overcame them all in formulating these proposals. In the jargon of the day, the taskforce thought small first, and the legislation includes provisions that are aimed at helping small businesses in particular. However, we and the taskforce felt that allowing flexible working for parents of children up to the age of six was beneficial to businesses. In many cases, skills were lost from the workplace because women, in particular, could not combine the pressures of their domestic lives with their professional responsibilities.

Philip Hammond: We have rehearsed this argument many times, but I still cannot understand how it benefits a firm that already operates good practice to impose such practice on its competitors. Surely we should encourage a climate in which good practice generates competitive advantage, thereby creating a virtuous spiral of employers competing with each other in offering such practice.

Alan Johnson: As the hon. Gentleman says, we have rehearsed this argument many times, and I agree with him completely in terms of work-life balance and people's ability to care for elderly parents, or to pursue hobbies. We are dealing with those issues through measures such as the work-life balance challenge fund. Employers For Work-life Balance—an organisation that was set up three years ago, and which is completely independent of Government—is also playing an important role. However, we decided that, for parents of small children, it would take a generation for best practice to work in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
	We decided that everyone has a stake in bringing children up properly and that wider social issues are involved. The introduction of a measure that is not a right to work flexibly, but a right to request to work flexibly—and that puts a duty on employers to consider such requests seriously—is a balanced approach. It will give thousands of parents the opportunity that they have not had before—or perhaps in some companies, such as those to which the hon. Gentleman referred, the courage and the confidence—to suggest to their employers that if they started work at 9.15 am rather than 9 am, they could drop their kids off at school, which would make their working lives much easier. We have a difference of view in relation to working parents, but the proposals were widely supported in two years of exhaustive consultation.

George Osborne: Surely the armed forces wish to be family-friendly employers. Since an employer may turn down a request for flexible working, why should not the armed forces face the same burden that the Government will put on private business?

Alan Johnson: As I said, the armed forces intend to comply with the spirit of the legislation. They raised some practical concerns in relation not to their civilian staff, who will be governed by the measures, but to their military staff. Even in a case in which a member of staff has put forward a perfectly reasonable request, the armed forces may not have the luxury of granting it, because circumstances may mean that they cannot implement those arrangements. As hon. Members will know from discussions in Committee, we thought that we could apply the provisions to the armed forces, but in practice and after consultation with them it was felt that it would not be possible. That is why we have introduced the exemption.
	Lords amendments Nos. 77 and 79 provide for ACAS conciliation and ACAS binding arbitration schemes for disputes concerning flexible working. The main priority of the flexible working provisions is to foster dialogue between parents and employers to find a flexible working pattern to suit them both. As part of that commitment, we always intended that there should be a binding arbitration scheme prepared by ACAS to deal with disputes regarding requests for flexible working that cannot be resolved in the workplace. The minor and technical amendments introduced in the Lords allow us to do this.
	The provision for a scheme relating to flexible working also helps to ensure that as few cases as possible end up at employment tribunals. Because the arbitration is binding, those who opt to use the scheme also waive their right to have their case heard at a tribunal.

Philip Hammond: Can the Minister confirm for the record—because the bigger picture is sometimes not visible when we consider Lords amendments—that we are talking about arbitration on whether the proper procedures have been followed, not on the substance of the request for flexible working or the employer's decision that he cannot accede to it?

Alan Johnson: We are talking about whether the request was given serious consideration. Arbitration may also address questions of fact. We are not asking a tribunal or ACAS to second-guess an employer's decision.
	I believe that the flexible working provisions lend themselves very well to an ACAS scheme. Disputes arising under the provisions will be relatively straightforward, concerning whether procedures have been contravened or if a decision by an employer to reject an application has been made on the basis of incorrect facts. Those are essentially factual rather than legal issues.
	Lords amendment No. 79 will have the additional effect of ensuring that conciliation is also an option in the resolution of any disputes arising out of the flexible working provisions. Again, that is entirely consistent with a key approach of this Bill: ensuring that alternative avenues of dispute resolution are available and contributing towards keeping employment tribunals to a minimum.

Philip Hammond: As the Minister said, these are largely technical and drafting amendments. I shall return to flexible working arrangements in view of the Minister's comments and the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), but first I should like to deal with two minor points that the Minister will no doubt be able to resolve very simply.
	Lords amendment No. 61 would insert into clause 55 two additional clauses, 45 and 46, to be excepted from the general rule that the provisions will come into force on such day as the Secretary of State appoints by order. When will they come into force? Will it be immediately after Royal Assent?
	Secondly, a substantial number of changes to schedule 8 are contained in Lords amendments Nos. 88 to 95. They would remove pieces of legislation that were originally listed as repeals and revocations in schedule 8. Have those changes been made necessary as a result of amendments to the Bill during its passage in the other place, or are they errors that are being corrected? It would be useful to know.
	On flexible working arrangements, and the changes being made under the slightly misleading heading of "minor, technical and drafting" amendments to exempt the armed forces from the provisions, I do not have the reports of the Committee's proceedings with me, but it would not surprise me if, in Committee, Opposition Members had asked the Minister about arrangements for the armed forces. On the face of it, I agree with the Minister. I understand that in employment law, the armed forces are often a special case that must be dealt with differently. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton pointed out, the right that is being granted is a right only to request flexible working and to have one's request seriously considered. The employer, whether it is the Army, the Air Force, the Navy or, indeed, Smith and Jones auto repairs down the road, can properly consider the employee's request and reject it on the ground that it cannot reasonably be accommodated within the working arrangements of the business. In many cases, the armed forces might legitimately turn down a request for flexible working arrangements, certainly for front-line staff. It is not quite so obvious that a member of the armed forces who is assigned to London-based office duties or cooks the meals in Admiralty House would be subject to the same considerations.
	My hon. Friend made a good point: it is not obvious, on the face of it, why the armed forces must be treated differently. Throughout the consideration of these relatively new provisions, Conservative Members have been concerned that this is the thin end of the wedge. The right to have a request for flexible working considered could become—as a result of negotiations between the Government and trade unions, for example—something more, such as a prima facie right to flexible working unless the employer demonstrated why he could not deliver it. In other words, the burden of proof would shift to the employer.
	If one adopts the conspiracy theorist approach—that the Government may have in mind moving the horizon, or removing the boundaries, in their forthcoming review of employment legislation—one can readily see why, at this stage, they might want to exclude the armed forces. There might not be a significant burden on the armed forces in considering a request from a person currently serving with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan and denying the request on the ground that it is not compatible with the working arrangements of that service man or woman. However, unless the armed forces were exempted, they could obviously be in some difficulty if the Government have it in mind to extend the provisions further. Will the Minister consider that point? Can he reassure me and my hon. Friend?

George Osborne: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way just before he concludes his remarks. May I put a point to the Minister, who has, as my hon. Friend said, exhibited some muddled thinking? The Minister tells us that the armed forces are special and that there are operational considerations. We all understand that, but surely those reasons would be taken into account in the provisions, which—as we understand the Minister's comments—will also apply to businesses. They, too, will be able to claim that there are special circumstances and that they cannot give an employee time off.

Philip Hammond: My hon. Friend made his point succinctly. I am only sorry to disappoint him by telling him that I was not about to conclude my remarks.
	It is easy for the Government always to decide that all these good ideas will not—apparently—impose serious burdens on private businesses or employers and are even good for them in some cases if they only were smart enough to realise it. Yet sectors under the Government's control, mysteriously, need to be exempted. We can see that from history: when sex discrimination legislation, for example, was introduced, the Government said, "Oh, but it can't apply to public services such as the police and the armed forces".
	We are talking about a service for which the Government have direct responsibility. The senior commanders are, in effect, employers, and have privileged access to the Government and the ability to put their point across. Lo and behold, after arguing in Committee that there was no need to exempt the armed forces, the Minister has seen the light and decided that there is a need for such exemption. If Ministers were as close to, and received such direct communication from, the many hundreds of thousands of businesses that fear that they may be adversely affected by the measures, they might realise that there are equally pressing needs—not reasons of national security, but certainly reasons of business survival—that other employers would pray in aid.

Mark Prisk: My hon. Friend mentioned the Minister's rather late-in-the-day approach. Is my hon. Friend also concerned about the extraordinary costs? As he will recall, in Committee, it was slipped out that the net extra cost would be £173 million? Does he agree that those costs should have been made explicit from the beginning?

Philip Hammond: My hon. Friend is right: that is another £173 million on the additional burden of billions of pounds that the Government have imposed on business. It is a small sum compared with the total burden, but a significant one for individual businesses.

Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Hammond: I am happy to do so. I wondered how long it would be before we provoked an intervention from the Labour Benches.

Rob Marris: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain something, because there seems to be a contradiction in what he says. When he intervened on the Minister, he said that the proposal represents best practice and that it will give business a competitive advantage, but he now seems to suggest that it represents a burden on business. I think that it is a good thing for business and that it should be made statutory. Can he make up his mind and tell the House which way he is going on this issue?

Philip Hammond: The Minister's case is that this is a good thing for business and that the Government will therefore statutorily impose it on business.

Rob Marris: rose—

Philip Hammond: Let me finish. The Minister's case seems wholly illogical. It is logical to say that this is a good thing for workers and therefore that we will statutorily impose it on business. In relation to another matter, it might be a good argument to say that it is a good thing for business and we will therefore statutorily impose it on workers. However, it cannot be logical and sensible to impose by statute something that is a good thing for the person who will be subject to it. What has happened to the concept of encouraging best practice to generate competitive advantage?
	In Committee, we spoke at length about Investors in People. The Minister would readily acknowledge that employers who adopt best practice and achieve Investors in People awards gain a competitive advantage in the recruitment and retention of employees. That is a very important competitive aspect of business these days.

Rob Marris: Of course the Minister can reply for himself, but I do not remember his specifying that the proposal was a good thing for business; he referred to the work-life balance.
	Given what the hon. Gentleman has just said, would he take the same line with health and safety at work? It is a good thing for employers that their workers do not get killed at work, but he seems to be saying, "We'll just leave that to best practice." I do not want to put words into his mouth—he will tell the House what he thinks—but there seems to be a clear analogy with health and safety.

Philip Hammond: indicated dissent

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, indicating that he broadly supports health and safety legislation. I am pleased to see that, as I am sure the House is, but there seems to be an analogy between the two issues. Which way is he going on this issue?

Philip Hammond: The hon. Gentleman's analogy stretches the point. Legislation for health and safety in the workplace is primarily intended to protect employees, and it is obviously right that it should be imposed by statute. All I suggest to the Minister is that he should not seek to shelter behind the somewhat spurious argument that these measures are being imposed on business because they are good for business. The same argument was adduced in relation to union learning representatives.
	It is suggested that business should not be worried because the proposal is good for business and therefore that those in business should be delighted that the Government are imposing it on them. Business will consider those issues. There is a very competitive marketplace for skilled labour and all sorts of labour that is in short supply.

Rob Marris: Because of a Labour Government.

Philip Hammond: No, because of the legacy left to the Government by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke).
	A primary issue on the agenda of any business, certainly in large parts of the country where the supply of labour, good quality employees—

Mr. Speaker: Order. These are minor amendments, and the hon. Gentleman is straying into making a more general point. The best course of action would be to get back to the minor amendments and move on.

Philip Hammond: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. I could not resist being provoked by the Minister's remarks into widening the debate, but the points that needed to be made have been made. I shall be interested to hear whether the Minister can answer the specific questions that I have asked.

Alan Johnson: I hope to deal with all the specific questions. First, on Lords amendment No. 61, clauses 45 and 46 will, indeed, come into force as soon as the Bill receives Royal Assent, which may happen as early as tonight. We could then table the regulations, which would allow us to give businesses plenty of time to deal with fixed-term regulations.
	The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) asked a rather mischievous question about whether some of the other Lords Amendments were intended to deal with errors.

Philip Hammond: Can the Minister tell the House whether there is any particular reason why clauses 45 and 46 will now come into effect on Royal Assent, rather than on a date to be specified by the Secretary of State? Is there a European Union deadline to comply with, or something of that nature?

Alan Johnson: There is, but we are going beyond that anyway, as we have announced that, instead of introducing these measures on 10 July, we will introduce them on 1 October to give businesses more time. The Commission understands that a proper period to consider the matter will ensure better compliance.
	On the technical amendments, all that I can tell the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge is that they put right inaccuracies that have crept into a few of the paragraphs that amend the Employment Rights Act 1996. For "inaccuracies", one should read "errors", but the Lords stage was the opportunity to tidy them up. We believe that the Lords were absolutely right in agreeing to those amendments.
	The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) raised in an intervention the issue of the cost assessment being sneaked in in Committee. I want to make it clear that the work and parents part of the Bill—the flexible working part—was subject to the taskforce report. That report came out after the Bill was published, so it was not part of the original Bill. The cost assessment therefore came later. We published it as soon as we published the amendment, and, when we dealt with it in Committee, it was four or five days after the taskforce report had been published—

Mark Prisk: Two days.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman says two days. I am sure that that is right.
	The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) raised some issues about the Ministry of Defence, and made the point that it and the armed forces are no different to other parts of business. They are different. Their circumstances are very different, as they are constantly on call. If other parts of business have the same problems, the Bill allows them the opportunity and the flexibility to quote those as reasons why they cannot accept the proposals.

George Osborne: rose—

Alan Johnson: I ask the hon. Member for Tatton to bide his time for a moment. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge suggested that the provision was related to the review of the Employment Relations Act 1999. As it is not part of the Employment Relations Act, it will not figure in the review of the operation of that Act. The hon. Member for Tatton will have an opportunity to argue that the provision has been such a roaring success that it ought to apply to the armed forces, however, when we review these measures in 2006, which was what the taskforce asked us to do, we will consider again whether to extend the provision, as I am sure that, in the meantime, it will have been a success.

George Osborne: The Minister says now that the armed forces are a completely different kettle of fish when it comes to this legislation. That is not what he said in Committee. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), I have found the Hansard report of that Committee. The Minister was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds)—who, sadly, is not present to hear how perceptive his question was—whether the armed forces were different, and he replied that they were not. To paraphrase the Minister, he continued to say that they include many personnel who do not work on the front line, and that regulations will deal specifically with the problem of front-line troops, who would probably not have a request granted to them. Why has the Minister changed his mind so completely? Who has got at him?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Member for Tatton must have been dozing off. When he reads the Hansard report of this debate, he will read that, when I replied on this point about 10 minutes ago, I stated that I said in Committee that I initially thought that the armed forces could be included. Indeed, I well remember the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Mr. Simmonds) raising the issue as we belted through a series of amendments at 100 mph, and I remember saying precisely that. What I am saying again is what I said 10 minutes ago: our initial view was that the provision could be extended to the armed forces. Following consultation and discussion with colleagues in the MOD, we have decided that the exemption is right, but we will, of course, review that in 2006.

Philip Hammond: I have just been rifling through the provisions to see whether there are any other exemptions in the Bill. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think that there are. Will he explain to the House why the position of service men is different, for example, from that of merchant seamen? It might seem obvious that merchant seamen should also be exempted from the flexible working provision. However, before we discussed this amendment, I would have expected him to have said that merchant seamen would not be exempt because their employers would rightly be able to deny a request for flexible working because of the nature of the work. Why is that argument used in the case of merchant seamen but not in the case of Royal Navy personnel?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman gave the answer himself. The armed forces are exempt because of their unique working conditions. Personnel are liable to be deployed operationally right across the world at little or no notice if the national interest requires that. They may also be required to be available at any time.
	The position of the Merchant Navy and the fishing fleet is precisely as the hon. Gentleman suggested. Employees in those sectors can make claims for flexible working, but the employer can, if he believes that he cannot meet the terms, reject the request by referring to a number of reasons that are set out in the legislation. The armed forces are different. I genuinely believe that they are unique. As I said earlier, civilian members of the Army will be governed by the provisions, but the armed forces are in a particularly unique position—if one can have a particularly unique position.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether the provisions would be good for business. We think that they will be good for business. In a world of work that has changed almost unbelievably over the past 30 years, never mind the past 50, many businesses are dealing with other issues and do not necessarily focus their attention on how they are better able to improve staff morale and reduce absenteeism. That point was certainly made to the work and parents taskforce. The provisions will be good for business.
	However, there is a point about individuals and we touched on it in Committee. Plenty of people in a time of low unemployment and a tight labour market—the so-called "war for talent"—have the skills and qualifications that allow them virtually to dictate their own terms and conditions. That point was made time and again in our consultation with companies. However, another group of people are not in that happy situation. We are trying to take people who are not particularly well qualified off benefit and into work, but such people might be feel less empowered to go to their employer to make suggestions. For example, we must legislate for parents with small children, because they often have a greater need for flexibility and for a job that will enable them to tackle social and financial exclusion. That group is important, too.
	It is not a question of competitive advantage. We are seeking to bridge the productivity gap between this country and our main competitors, so the issue is the United Kingdom, rather than individual companies, having a better competitive advantage. For all those reasons, I hope that the House will agree to the Lords amendment.
	Lords amendment agreed to.

Clause 22
	 — 
	Employment tribunals

Lords amendment: No. 26.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 27 to 30.

Alan Johnson: The amendments concern the ability to pay employment tribunal and employment appeal tribunal cost orders and preparation time payments. The other place discussed a recent Court of Appeal case, Kovacs v. Queen Mary and Westfield college and the Royal Hospitals NHS trust, which ruled that a tribunal cannot take into account a party's ability to pay when making an award of costs.
	It has long been a feature of the employment tribunal system that ability to pay can be a consideration in deciding whether to make a costs award or in setting the level of an award. The Court of Appeal decision effectively removed the tribunal's discretion in that respect, but we believe that it should be able to take ability to pay into account if it considers that appropriate.
	Throughout our deliberations, we heard that tribunal rules and procedures differ from those of other courts because their nature is different and distinct. A large number of applicants may be in a vulnerable position because they have lost their jobs or are pursuing redundancy or wages complaints. We must be careful to ensure that the costs regime takes proper account of that.
	Amendment No. 26 provides that tribunal regulations may include provision authorising a tribunal to take ability to pay into account when making a costs award. Amendments Nos. 28 and 30 do the same for preparation time awards and the employment appeal tribunal respectively. A tribunal will have the option of making a full award of costs, no award or a reduced award as it sees fit.
	We have provided for a discretion, not a requirement. Making it a requirement that the tribunal must take into account a party's ability to pay when making a costs award would mean that a party of very limited means could bring or conduct a tribunal case wholly unreasonably with absolute impunity. That cannot be right. There would be no deterrent to unreasonable behaviour, we would weaken the tribunal's powers to control such behaviour and there would be no means of compensating a party who suffers as a result.
	There may be circumstances, albeit rare and extreme, in which a party of limited means has behaved in such an unreasonable or vexatious way that a costs award may still be justified. I mentioned in an earlier debate that a tribunal concluded that a woman had brought a costs case against her husband purely as an extension of their matrimonial dispute. Such cases are of course rare, but they happen occasionally and tribunals must be able to deal with them.
	Amendment No. 27 is a technical amendment to the new provision for preparation time awards. It replaces
	"the time spent by that other party in preparing his case to"
	with
	"time spent in preparing that other party's case".
	It has always been our intention that awards of preparation time that are made to respondents who employ staff should be able to take account of time spent by those staff who work on the case. Although the original wording of the clause would have allowed for that in the case of a corporate respondent because it can only act through its employees, the position of a sole trader who employs staff was less clear because it might imply that the provision for preparation time would apply only to time spent by him or her personally. The wording has therefore been amended to read "that other party's case" rather than "his".
	The new wording also refers to "time spent" rather than "the time spent". That is a minor change. It reflects the fact that although parties will have to show that they have spent time on a case in order to be eligible for an award, they will not be required to produce detailed evidence of the actual time spent on it.
	Amendment No. 29 is a substantial amendment. It provides that if regulations are made on costs and preparation time, they must include a provision that the tribunal may not award both costs and preparation time to the same person in the same proceedings. Throughout the Bill's proceedings, we heard from a number of highly respected organisations who work with applicants, such as the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, the Law Society and the Trades Union Congress, that the threat of costs is increasingly being used to intimidate applicants into withdrawing their complaints regardless of whether the case is without merit or whether the applicant's behaviour has been unreasonable. They are concerned that awards could be higher as a result of the new provision for preparation time and that representatives would use that to intimidate applicants genuinely seeking redress for an infringement of their employment rights.

George Osborne: Although these individual points may be good ones, the Minister seems to be straying from the original point of the Bill, which is to deter people from bringing various cases to an employment tribunal. Indeed, the Government originally had the idea of charging people to bring a case which they dropped before the Bill was even introduced. Is the Minister aware that he is in danger of watering down the proposals so much that they will not have any effect on the number of cases brought to a tribunal?

Alan Johnson: I hope that when the hon. Gentleman has heard the case he will feel differently. As he said, these are laudable amendments. It was never our intention to deter people who have a grievance or a claim against their employer from going to a tribunal, nor was it the intention of anybody in the Standing Committee to frighten people so that they would not pursue their case. The whole ethos behind the Bill stems from the fact that many disputes that go to employment tribunals could be sorted out in the workplace. That was the main thrust of our argument. We felt that between 30,000 and 40,000 cases could be solved in the workplace.
	On this clause, we argued that in a system designed to discourage legal representation—the whole basis of the system is its informality—it would be ridiculous to award costs only to people who were legally represented, so that people whose time had been equally wasted but who represented themselves would receive no compensation. That is the basis of the amendment.

Judy Mallaber: Will my hon. Friend confirm that, in Committee, those of us who were concerned about preparation costs were seeking to protect not those trying to make a vexatious claim but the most vulnerable people? They would easily be intimidated by somebody with a phalanx of people working for him whose time could be costed, and they would therefore be vulnerable to the argument that they could be landed with a bill for, say, £10,000 in costs.

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She, along with other colleagues, raised those concerns in our debates. The amendment deals with them by providing that when the regulations on costs and preparation time are drawn up, they must include provision that a tribunal cannot award compensation for both costs and preparation time. We will consider many of the other points made about the limit on costs, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), which will be dealt with in the regulations.
	The amendment has been welcomed by the Law Society as being fairer than the existing provisions. It has also acknowledged that
	"given the nature of employment tribunals it may be legitimate to allow tribunals to include awards for non-legal costs".
	We will consider how best to set that out in the regulations, and we will of course consult on those.

Philip Hammond: As the Minister said, the amendments do two things. They introduce changes that empower tribunals to take account of a person's financial circumstances in setting awards of costs or of compensation for preparation time and, separately, they introduce a prohibition on awards being made for both costs and preparation time.
	On the latter point, I understand the concerns, expressed by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) in Committee and again today, that people should not be denied access to a tribunal by the threat of exceptionally high costs being sought against them. The Government have gone about it in the wrong way, and in a moment I shall suggest to the Minister another way in which it could have been done.
	First, I want to deal with the taking into account of a person's financial circumstances. On the face of it, the Minister's case for the amendment sounds reasonable—that in making an award of costs, the financial circumstances of the person against whom the costs are awarded should be taken into account. However, he did not underline the fact that costs are not routinely awarded in employment tribunal cases. We are talking only about cases where the applicant or defendant has acted frivolously or vexatiously: the ordinary applicant with a perfectly reasonable case who happens to lose it will not be clobbered for an enormous amount of costs. The Minister gave us the figures in Committee. In the most recent year for which figures were available, awards of costs were made in about 400 or 500 of the many tens of thousands of tribunal cases. In the vast majority of cases, the issue of costs will not arise, because it arises only where the applicant, defendant or respondent is judged to have behaved frivolously or vexatiously. It is not clear to me that in those circumstances the pecuniousness or otherwise of the applicant should be a principal consideration.
	Another issue is involved. The ability to recover an award of costs is a protection for the innocent victim of such vexatious or frivolous behaviour. That could be an employer who is faced with a claim that is scandalously improper—I think that scandalous is one of the terms used, as well as vexatious and frivolous—but he still has to defend it. It could be an applicant with a rock-solid, cast-iron, open-and-shut case who is forced to argue their way through a completely implausible and vexatious defence mounted by the respondent. The ability to recover costs is an important protection for people who are involuntarily caught up in these matters as a result of having been on one end or the other of such behaviour. Employers in particular are forced to defend actions brought against them in the employment tribunal. In Committee, I quoted comments made to me by the chairman of a relatively large publicly quoted company, who would not want to be named for obvious reasons. He said that his company invariably settles any employment tribunal claim brought against it if it can settle it for less than £2,000. The company does that not on the merits of the case brought, but simply on a cold, hard analysis of the fact that it will cost it at least £2,000 to investigate the facts and to allow the employee time to prepare a case and mount a defence.
	It is a pretty serious indictment of the employment tribunal system that for some people, at least, it is essentially a free ticket to small claims, because employers feel that they have to settle them. The Minister seems implicitly to have recognised that problem, in that the Bill tightens up on access to the tribunal and ensures that cases that are brought are proper cases. I suggest to him that this provision does not move in that direction by trying to discourage vexatious and frivolous cases.

Judy Mallaber: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Hammond: I first give way to the hon. Member for Amber Valley.

Judy Mallaber: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the amendment would only authorise an employment tribunal to have regard to a person's ability to pay, rather than requiring them to take account of it, so cases such as those that he described would be taken account of by the tribunal in making its award of costs? There is an aspect of costs that is broader than simply what happens in the tribunal itself. It is involved in cases where someone in the workplace is intimidated by the idea that when they reach an employment tribunal they could be landed with a very high bill, regardless of whether that would be so. Such a person may not have access to advice telling them that they would not in fact be landed with such costs.

Philip Hammond: The hon. Lady is right in that the amendment proposes that the rules should authorise tribunals to take into account the circumstances of the person against whom the award is made.
	In the letter sent to my noble Friend Baroness Miller when the amendment was before the other place, Lord Sainsbury seemed to imply that there was no cause for concern because in the really bad cases the tribunal would still be able to award costs against someone without regard to their financial circumstances. The point that I was trying to make is that the question of an award of costs arises only in the really bad cases—only if the case is vexatious, frivolous or scandalous. In the vast majority of cases, win or lose, the issue of costs will not arise.

Rob Marris: My recollection of the debate in Committee is similar to the hon. Gentleman's, but I seem to remember the Minister citing figures suggesting that, in about one third of cases where costs were awarded, they were awarded against the respondent employer. That employer might be a badly advised small business, or there could have been a personality clash in a small company. Is the champion of small business now saying that we should not have regard for such businesses' ability to pay, and that those businesses might be put out of operation as a result?

Philip Hammond: Although I am happy to be referred to on the record by the hon. Gentleman as the champion of small business, I also like to be thought of as the champion of fairness. We must think very carefully about the person who did not ask to become involved in a process but who must incur costs—either in time or in external costs—in responding. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because I hope that it will be clear to those listening that I am not making a partisan point. This is not a point made exclusively on behalf of employers.
	I can perfectly easily envisage an employer deciding to fight tooth and nail an application which he knows in his heart—and which it is perfectly apparent to everybody else—cannot be defended. It is wholly reasonable that the person making such an application should have the opportunity to recover the costs that they have properly incurred as a result of being put to all the trouble by the vexatious actions of the other party—be it the employer or the employee. In equity, the pecuniousness or otherwise of that other party is not the principal issue.
	I am certainly not a blind champion of anybody. I recognise, and have recognised, that there are rotten apples in every barrel, and I would never pretend otherwise.

Tony Lloyd: I completely fail to understand the hon. Gentleman's logic. Had costs been a permanent deterrent and had the possibility of incurring them been known from the beginning, or had costs been a routine way of recovering expenditure by the state and others, it might have been argued that the provision should apply equally to everybody. However, the hon. Gentleman is suggesting rather arbitrarily that those who are super rich—either respondents of claimants—should be able to go to a tribunal knowing full well that they can absorb easily any costs incurred, but that those who are much less well off, because they come from a small firm or they are acting individually, should be penalised disproportionately. I do not see the sense of justice in that. Is not the balance about right?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is rather long.

Philip Hammond: The hon. Gentleman's old Labour credentials often come through impeccably. Such payments are a fact of life in our society—unless he advocates making every penalty and award proportionate to the income of the person forced to pay it. The hon. Gentleman nods in agreement, but we are straying from the amendment, which would not have any impact on the problem that he raised. He is right: with or without the amendment, a rich employer, determined to go head to head with an applicant with an unanswerable case, would be able to do so with impunity, knowing that he could absorb the award of costs. The point made by the hon. Gentleman is therefore not particularly relevant to our discussion of the amendment.
	Earlier in our debate, an important general point was made about the inexorable rise in tribunal applications. The Government's underlying intention in introducing the legislation was not to deter people with well-founded claims from making them, but to ensure, first, that claims that do not need to go to a tribunal to be settled, do not do so, and secondly, that the tribunal does not become the subject of a growing number of vexatious and frivolous claims brought by people who believe that they can test the water. Who knows, perhaps they are in the fortunate position of working for someone like the anonymous employer whom I cited earlier, who will settle anyway to avoid hassle and expense. There is no doubt that a bit of that has been going on.
	The Minister has accepted the underlying purpose of clause 22 is not to sweep claims under the carpet so that people do not have access to a settlement, but to achieve settlement in the workplace wherever possible. In our early consideration of the Bill, the Minister talked about reducing the number of tribunal applications, but in more recent exchanges, he has talked about arresting the rise in the number of tribunal applications. That is an important distinction—the Government's original, laudable objective in the provision has been abandoned before the Bill has even completed its parliamentary passage. I should be grateful if the Minister could give the House up-to-date figures on employment tribunal applications, together with the Government's revised target.
	Are the Government expecting a reduction in the number of employment tribunal applications as a result of the passage of the Bill, or are they, as I believe is the case, projecting a rise in the number of employment tribunal applications? If so, how many applications are involved? I fear that many of my hon. Friends and many people outside the House will regard that as an acknowledgement of failure of the Government's objectives. Can the Minister confirm that if the trend continues to rise inexorably, he will review the evidence, particularly in relation to vexations and frivolous claims, and reconsider the Government's position if it becomes apparent that such claims are not being adequately prevented by the amendment?
	The second substantive point arising from this group of amendments is slightly different.

Tony Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman touches on an important point concerning the philosophy of the tribunal. Does he believe that the rise in the number of people applying to tribunals is driven by either vexatious claimants or vexatious respondents? If that is the case, we would need to look into it. However, if the hon. Gentleman believes, as I do, that the rise in the number of tribunal cases may be arrested by more satisfactory procedures, which my hon. Friend the Minister has tried to introduce into the law, and reflects the nature of the modern world of employment, we are faced with a different situation. The hon. Gentleman is speaking about deterring legitimate claims from going to tribunals.

Philip Hammond: I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman is right and that the Bill achieves the original objective set out by the Government—to reduce the number of applications to tribunals by improving the procedures for dealing in the workplace with what might otherwise become employment tribunal applications.
	I believe I am right in saying that the Minister has already acknowledged—he will clarify this when he speaks again—that we will not see a reduction, and that the best we can hope for is a diminution in the rate of growth. I do not have the figures. [Interruption.] The Minister is chuckling on the Bench; perhaps he has them now. I am not suggesting to the hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) that the increase that we have witnessed is driven entirely by vexatious or frivolous claims, in the technical sense in which the employment legislation defines those. However, I do think, and I am not afraid to say this, that there has been an element of gold digging.
	There is a perception in some quarters that some employers will buckle in the face of modest claims, because of the expense and disruption of defending themselves against claims. As I understand it, the Government recognise that phenomenon and, while wishing to protect the right of the genuinely aggrieved party to have access to the tribunal, do not wish to encourage frivolous or trivial use of the tribunal in the hope of making a quick buck. I should not have thought that the hon. Member for Manchester, Central wanted to encourage that either.
	The second substantive point to which the present group of amendments gives rise relates to the ability to recover legal costs and own-preparation time. The Government are right in the original drafting of the Bill to remove any discrimination against parties who prepare and mount their own case, rather than using expensive external legal resources. That will benefit parties on both sides of the industrial equation, and we welcome it.
	However, the Government in their wisdom have now decided that people can be awarded costs in respect of only one or the other form of expense—external third-party costs, typically of engaging a lawyer, or the person or firm's own costs in mounting a defence internally. Almost invariably, there will be both forms of cost. Even if an employer faced with a claim immediately engages a law firm to act for him, as many do, he will find that the law firm is unable to act without a great deal of information being collated internally in the firm, a considerable amount of time and energy being spent to produce basic information, and probably somebody from the firm attending the tribunal.
	The proposal in the Government amendment is particularly disadvantageous to smaller businesses. In practice, a large firm will be used to receiving and dealing with employment tribunal applications, not because it is a bad firm or because it has particularly litigious employees, but by its nature as a large firm. It will have a procedure in place, and will probably have in-house lawyers who can deal with the matter. If not, it will have a retained external law firm to which it will immediately pass the matter. In either case, the large majority of its costs will fall under one of two headings—own costs or third-party legal costs—and it will therefore be able to cover them under the amendment.
	Let us consider a typical small business such as a sole trader. On receiving an application from an employee in respect of an employment tribunal, the employer in such a business will probably seek first to deal with the issue himself. Small businesses are usually reluctant to incur external costs and especially to hire lawyers, because they know that lawyers typically do not come cheap. The employer will probably struggle with the case for some time on his own, but if it becomes apparent that it will be tested in a tribunal, he may well feel that he does not have the presentational and adversarial skills and so on that he requires to appear there in person as the principal representative for the respondent. When it becomes apparent that the matter is serious and will go to a tribunal, he will therefore be likely to engage a lawyer.
	I suggest to the Minister that many smaller firms will find that they have costs under both the headings to which I referred, as they will have started by trying to deal with the matter themselves and to keep their legal costs down by doing as much of the work as they can, but will still have had to engage expensive legal support in the latter stages, bearing in mind that nobody knows in preparing a response to a tribunal application whether they will be awarded costs. The statistical evidence suggests that it is more than likely that they will not.

Kevan Jones: Surely, if the employer thinks that the claim is frivolous and vexatious, the law allows them to ask for a pre-hearing assessment before the chairman of the tribunal. The chairman can determine that the claim is frivolous and vexatious, and direct that, if the case is taken forward, the other party will have to cover the costs if they lose.

Philip Hammond: The hon. Gentleman is right; I think that the law currently allows a deposit to be requested at the pre-hearing. I think that the deposit is typically £150, although perhaps I am wrong, in which case the Minister will correct me.
	Such remedies may be available, but I am seeking to make a more general point. As I said, I am not indifferent to the point made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley. I have firmly lodged in my mind the example cited in the Standing Committee involving a lawyer sending out a threatening letter suggesting that costs could be as high as £50,000, in an attempt to scare an applicant off. Such behaviour is clearly unacceptable.
	If the Minister recognises that there is a problem, he must address the issue of the maximum quantum of costs that can be incurred in mounting a response to an application. It seems perverse and illogical to suggest that it is okay to incur £10,000 of legal costs by going to an expensive legal firm for advice or £10,000 of own costs by using one's internal resources, such as an in-house lawyer, but that an employer who spends £4,000 internally and another £4,000 by taking the case in its latter stages to an external lawyer will be eligible only for reimbursement of a maximum of £4,000. If the Minister wants to address the concerns of the hon. Member for Amber Valley, he would best do so by introducing some means of capping the total cost and not by imposing a grossly unfair and discriminatory prohibition on firms or applicants who incur costs under both headings and may therefore suffer by comparison with someone who has incurred all their costs under one head.
	I urge the Minister to think very carefully about his logic for introducing such provision, as it does not seem fair, equitable or appropriate.

Joan Walley: I do not wish to detain the House long on this issue. I am relieved that there is an amendment from the other place that will require or at least give discretion to an employment tribunal to have regard to ability to pay. I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister's acceptance of the amendment. These issues are at the core of the way in which we are taking forward employment tribunal procedures, and relate as much to regulations that were introduced some 12 months or so ago that changed the way in which costs were introduced so that any case that was unreasonable, as opposed to vexatious or frivolous, could incur costs. How can we say that something is reasonable or otherwise without the benefit of hindsight? How else can case law be established?
	At the heart of this debate are the changes that were introduced a year ago, which increased the upper limit in respect of costs. I do not think that we would be having this precise debate now, with the statements that the shadow Minister has just made to the House, if we had not had those changes.
	The changes in the regulations still give me some concern as to whether the Government's proposals will deal with people being deterred from taking cases to employment tribunals, or ensure that more is dealt with within the work force itself. Of course, we want particular concerns to be dealt with in the workplace. We do not want them to have a go to a tribunal, but there is still some failure to tie up the implications of those changes.
	Comments have been made about how many cases are going to tribunals. How is the Minister monitoring the cases that are going to tribunals? Have we seen a change in the number of cases going forward since those regulations were introduced last July?
	I am relieved that we have this amendment from the Lords. I wrote to the Minister on 26 June 2001 pointing out that there was still no requirement on tribunals to have regard to the ability to pay and drawing attention to the Kovacs case. In his response in a letter dated 16 July, the Minister said that that was correct
	"but case law has established that in making a costs order it will usually be desirable to look into the means of the party concerned, and of course tribunal chairmen are well aware of this."
	As the Minister has pointed out, we now have the decision of the employment appeals tribunal, which sets out that there is no way in which a chairman of an employment tribunal could have any discretion as to whether costs should or should not be awarded—there is no way in which that could take place. Therefore, I am relieved that, finally, after 12 months of correspondence—and having raised the matter on Second Reading—we have an acknowledgement in the other place that that has to be taken into account.
	The Minister said that chairmen of employment tribunals and indeed employment tribunals themselves should take into account ability to pay where it is appropriate to do so. Given that we do not have a requirement—we have only a discretion—I still have some concerns. I wonder whether the Minister could spell out in a little more detail for the record exactly which circumstances he is thinking of in which the chairman could have regard to ability to pay. That is a critical point.
	The changes brought in 12 months ago could do far more to deter people from taking claims to employment tribunals because they were afraid. I am not thinking about the businesses, the employers; I am thinking about those who have valid cases, but who may be deterred from taking their cases to tribunals simply because they fear substantial costs may be awarded against them. I should be grateful if the Minister would give further attention to that when he replies.

Tony Lloyd: May I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I welcome the amendments and the fact that the Government want to see them incorporated into the Bill? I think that it was the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) who talked about deterrence. Let us make it clear that, while most of us would accept the legitimacy of deterrence to prevent frivolous, vexatious or, indeed, scandalous claims—although these are sometimes quite subjective concepts—there is always a concern that deterrence will be applied to legitimate claimants. Not only might such claimants be deterred when they find themselves saddled with costs but they might not even dare to exercise their right of access to the tribunal. While we want to deter those who abuse the system, we certainly do not want to deter those who should have proper recourse to the tribunal. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will make it quite clear that that is the Government's approach, and that we are not here to deter legitimate claimants.

George Osborne: The Minister said in Committee that it was his objective to reduce by 30,000 or 40,000 the number of cases coming before employment tribunals. Does the hon. Gentleman share that objective? It is not entirely clear from what he is saying that he does.

Tony Lloyd: Let me make it quite clear. If no one ever exercised their right of access to a tribunal because the internal mechanisms worked well, we would all be delighted. Conservative Members should not work themselves into a frenzy saying that the existence of the tribunals is, of itself, a bad thing, or that the use of an existing tribunal is a bad thing. Sometimes a society such as ours needs such provisions—I do not want to use the term "case law", because it would almost give tribunals too much of a legalistic nature, which we want to avoid. We need the tribunals to examine where the balance lies in industrial relations in our society; they perform an important role above and beyond the simple resolution of individual cases. We do not want the idea to go out from the Chamber tonight, or from anywhere else, that we regret either the existence or the operation of the tribunals. They are a necessary part of a modern, efficient society.
	We are talking about how we should fine-tune the tribunals' function, and make them work better. In that context, the Minister has genuinely made progress. The opportunity for the tribunals to reflect on the ability of an individual to pay—whether it be the claimant or the respondent—is an important one, and the Minister is right to put it into the Bill and into regulations. It is also right that we should cap the number of avenues under which costs of different kinds can be given, because the whole idea of the granting of costs should not involve fines or penalties. The provisions may be there to deter the vexatious, but they are not there to say, "This person got it right, and the other one, who got it wrong, is therefore subject to this fine."
	It is important that the ability to pay—even for the vexatious—is taken into account. We all have constituents who are, quite frankly, obsessive. Of course it is right and proper that we should deter them, and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) correctly pointed out that the pre-hearing scrutiny normally provides the most efficient way of taking out those cases. However, we do not want to end up with a fundamentally ridiculous situation in which even an obsessive is so burdened by debt that they cannot pay, which would make a mockery of the system.

Judy Mallaber: rose—

Philip Hammond: rose—

Tony Lloyd: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall give way to my hon. Friend first.

Judy Mallaber: Does my hon. Friend recall the cases that were brought before us in Committee, which showed that this is not just a question of cases being vexatious and frivolous? We were told about a number of cases that it would have been perfectly reasonable for the applicant to think were well founded, but that were found to be vexatious or frivolous. Those applicants would not necessarily have thought that that would be the outcome when they entered the tribunal. We were told of several cases that illustrated that point.

Tony Lloyd: That is an important point. We are not trying to saddle people with debts; that is certainly not what the tribunal process is intended to be about.

Philip Hammond: I think that the hon. Gentleman just described the award of costs as a fine. Is that how he sees such awards throughout our tribunal and legal systems? I see them simply as compensation paid to injured parties for costs they have incurred.

Tony Lloyd: If the hon. Gentleman had been listening, he would have heard me say that awards should not come to be seen as fines. Of course they can constitute recompense to injured parties.
	Let us consider the origin of the tribunal. It was about low-cost justice; it was not about encouraging highly paid lawyers to represent one side or the other. The aim was to retain common sense and a sense of proportion, and I think the Minister has tried to strike that right and proper balance.
	I hope, though, that the Minister will reflect on concerns that have been expressed throughout about the deterrent effects. It is in everyone's interests for fewer cases to go to tribunals, but only if that is because disputes are resolved at an earlier stage or, even better, because an industrial relations climate develops in which problems do not arise in the first place. What we do not want is a fall in the number of tribunal cases that merely masks injustice and unfairness. That is why I want the Minister to monitor the situation. We need to be sure that people who really need access to tribunals, in order to resolve genuine problems in the workplace, are not deterred.

Philip Hammond: The hon. Gentleman has succinctly identified what needs to be done, but I can think of no method of distinguishing between the two possible causes of a fall in the number of applications to tribunals. Has the hon. Gentleman any ideas for how the Minister might undertake the monitoring that he has suggested?

Tony Lloyd: There are many ways of doing it. Opposition Members will disagree profoundly with this, but I believe that a growth in trade unionism would provide a much better way of determining whether workers are being treated properly. If the number of applications falls, it will of course be possible to note the number of successful claims and the number of unsuccessful claims. A massive rise in the number of unsuccessful claims, or a proportionate rise against the background of an overall reduction, would tend to suggest that something was going wrong—that people with real claims were not going to tribunals.

Kevan Jones: Might not one way of reducing the number of applications be to educate small business and other employers to use proper procedures?

Tony Lloyd: Absolutely. We can argue later about whether the code mentioned elsewhere in the Bill will prove effective, but, as my hon. Friend says, it may be possible to resolve many problems long before even mentioning tribunals if employers and, indeed, employees work within the context of properly structured grievance and disciplinary procedures.
	The Government have made progress. They have taken an important step, but we need to make it clear that we do not intend to deter legitimate claimants, and we need to monitor the situation to ensure that the spirit of what the Minister wants to achieve is translated into practice throughout the country.

Rob Marris: I begin by declaring that, among my registered interests, I am a non-practising solicitor. I want to ask the Minister about two disjunctions. First, under amendment No. 29, an award could be made either for legal costs or for preparation time in respect of employment tribunals. Can he assure me that that provision will also apply to employment appeal tribunals? Secondly, clause 23 states:
	"For section 34 of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996 (costs and expenses) there is substituted"
	a new clause 34, subsection (1) of which states:
	"Appeal Tribunal procedure rules may include provision for the award of costs or expenses."
	Will the Minister clarify that wording, which suggests that such a tribunal could award either costs or expenses?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) said that, in principle, the Opposition accept the thrust of the Government's efforts in respect of preparation costs, but he suggested that there is another approach. The basis of the Bill as debated in Committee was that some money could come from preparation costs, and some from actual legal representation. Various arguments have been advanced time and again. The point made by my hon. Friends—that in addition to having costs awarded against them, people could also have to bear the huge expense associated with a company's putting time and effort into defending a case—was raised by the Law Society and the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux.

Philip Hammond: Yes, but the Minister has not dealt with it. Under the amendment, a company could still rely entirely on its own resources, and its internal costs could still be the subject of an award.

Alan Johnson: Yes, but the fear that considerable costs would be imposed on top of legal charges was a separate issue. The central argument is that, in a system that tries to discourage legal representation, it is ludicrous that those who sit at their kitchen table night after night, prepare their own case, represent themselves and win should get no recompense. On that central point, people said to me, "Why don't you introduce one thing or the other?" If the issue is ensuring that those who do not use legal representation are no worse off—we must remember that, in terms of wasted costs, we are talking about 4 per cent. of cases—surely the award should be made in respect of either preparation costs or legal costs.
	The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge mentioned frivolous cases, but I should rebuke him mildly. In fact, because those who chair employment tribunals thought that the word "frivolous" was entirely inappropriate to the legal profession, it was removed. It was replaced by the word "misconceived", and in respect of wasted costs, reference is now made to misconceived, vexatious and unreasonable claims.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) is absolutely right: last year, a third of recipients were respondents, not applicants; in fact, the year before that the ratio was 50:50. Some 50 per cent. of such costs were awarded to businesses—probably small businesses—which, if they represented themselves, could not claim back the costs incurred.
	It is important to get the matter into perspective. We have not sought to widen the basis of costs awards, and nor should we. The existing definition—which refers to misconceived, vexatious and unreasonable claims, and to abusive behaviour during a tribunal—presents no problem and relates to only 4 per cent. of cases.

Philip Hammond: The Minister has addressed his remarks to the own costs element. He painted a picture of the fear of the own costs that a vast firm might incur internally as a deterrent to the applicant. In the next breath, he talked of an own costs applicant slaving away at his kitchen table night after night. I thought that the Minister's objective was to encourage people not to be legally represented at tribunals. Would not the simple and logical approach have been to limit the award of costs to own costs, not legal costs?

Alan Johnson: No, I think that we have got the balance right. We will consult on the regulations and take into account the points that were made about putting a cap on costs, although that will be less necessary if the House accepts the amendments. If the central argument is that those people who are not legally represented cannot claim wasted costs, we shall give them the choice between own costs and legal costs. That has met the requirements of the Law Society and the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. We all duck and dive with our arguments, but I mentioned small businesses because—as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South–West pointed out—they made up a third of the parties that were awarded costs last year, and 50 per cent. the year before.
	The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge also asked for some indication of the number of cases. In 2001–02, there were between 115,000 and 120,000 applications. In the year before, there were 130,000. However, I would counsel hon. Members against drawing any conclusions from those figures, because in the year before last many one-off cases were brought, including EU cases in which a whole group was settled at a time. Those included some famous cases that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West will remember. It is those special circumstances that have led to that reduction, not my year as the Minister responsible for employment relations.
	We believe that the Bill will mean that some 30,000 to 40,000 cases will be settled outside employment tribunals which would have otherwise gone before them. Part of that reduction will be those disputes settled in the workplace, and part will be those settled during the fixed period of conciliation. Part will also be accounted for by those cases that were struck out at the pre-hearing stage, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) mentioned. At the moment, vexatious, misconceived or unreasonable cases cannot be struck out at the pre-hearing stage and the tribunal can only require a deposit of £500—an increase from £100. A later amendment will allow cases to be struck out at that stage.
	Hon. Members have asked how we may further reduce the number of cases, and we have introduced the ACAS arbitration scheme, which was agreed by both sides of the House. It has not been totally successful so far, with only 14 cases using the scheme, but we can do much more work to advertise its availability.

George Osborne: The Minister was careful in the way he put his estimate. He said that he hoped to reduce by some 30,000 to 40,000 the number of cases that would otherwise have gone to an employment tribunal, but he did not say that he hoped for an absolute reduction in the number of cases going to employment tribunals. Given that other provisions in the Bill, such as flexible working rights, may lead to an increase in cases going to employment tribunals, can he clarify whether he hopes to see an absolute reduction in the number of cases going to employment tribunals, and by how much?

Alan Johnson: As I said on Report, people are more aware of their rights now, which is healthy. They have more rights to be aware of.

Mark Prisk: Absolutely.

Alan Johnson: Indeed, but it is not absolute. Given that we are committed to tackling discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, religion and sexual orientation, it would be crazy for me to predict an absolute fall in employment tribunal cases. I picked my words very carefully. Of the disputes that might go to employment tribunals, about 30,000 to 40,000 can be settled outside, and I think that that is a worthy ambition.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms Walley) expressed her concerns eloquently. I recognise that she has long been concerned about the £10,000 costs award. Of course, awards could go as high as £10,000 before, but it needed a separate court order and could not be done at the employment tribunal.
	My hon. Friend asked how we will gauge or monitor the situation in relation to the introduction of the £10,000 award last July. That was last July—a year ago today—so we have 12 months' worth of information. We are expecting to begin a study of the employment tribunal cost regime in the next year, and we will look very closely at the result. Some evidence has already emerged at the employment tribunal system taskforce, but we will certainly look at it again.
	My hon. Friend also spoke about ability to pay, which is the other important issue in this group of amendments. We made it a discretion rather than a requirement in order to restore the status quo. It was always a discretion, not a requirement, until the time of the Court of Appeal case. We did not make it a requirement because, as I said earlier, there could be circumstances in which someone of limited means knew that they had absolute indemnity to raise these cases. We believe that the discretion should be placed with the tribunal. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge asked whether that should be a principal consideration. We are not saying that, but the employment tribunal should have the ability—the discretion—to make a full award, no award or a reduced award. We are simply returning to the previous situation.

Joan Walley: In view of what my hon. Friend has just said, does he anticipate issuing guidance to employment tribunal chairmen on how the discretion is to be applied, following the decision of the Court of Appeal?

Alan Johnson: We will certainly issue guidance and it will be part of the regulations. However, the judiciary and the employment tribunal chairs will be very familiar with the regime, as it existed until just a few months ago, following the Court of Appeal decision. I do not think that there will be any problems there.

Philip Hammond: I sense that the Minister is coming towards the end of his remarks. Have the Government any evidence to suggest that the total sum of costs is higher in cases where both internal and external resources have been brought to bear, compared with those where the matter has been dealt with entirely by an external law firm or in-house? If not, I do not believe that he has made the case for refusing to recognise a mixed base of costs.

Alan Johnson: No, I do not have that evidence, but we know that the average award over the past year has been £300. There is a big gap between £300 and £10,000. That suggests three things: there are not many of these cases; tribunals take into account ability to pay; and the fact that the award is only £300 but could go as high as £10,000 is part of the fear factor about which we hear time and again from people who deal with these cases day in, day out. The hon. Gentleman made a valid point and his argument is logical. We considered the establishment of a mixed system but were persuaded to move away from it—hence the amendment.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lloyd) pointed out that we were not dissuading people from going to employment tribunals. I said that earlier—as I have on other occasions—and I am happy to repeat it: we are not about denying people justice. To be fair to the Opposition—certainly those Members who sat on the Committee—I do not think that was their objective either.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West asked, first, whether the provision would apply to the employment appeal tribunal. There is no provision for preparation time in the tribunal, although there is provision for litigants in person, so we need to apply the provision either for preparation or legal costs.
	My hon. Friend's second point—

Rob Marris: rose—

Alan Johnson: If my hon. Friend wants to intervene, perhaps he could remind me of his second question.

Rob Marris: My point referred to page 33 of the Bill and the revised section 34 of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996, which states:
	"Appeal Tribunal procedure rules may include provision for the award of costs or expenses."
	Expenses are different from preparation time—they relate to the cost of a witness attending a tribunal hearing or, in this case, an appeal tribunal. Given that on page 32 there is a reference to costs and expenses, I wanted to ensure that no problem would arise. It might help those in the judicial system who have to interpret the measure if the Minister could give some clarification.

Philip Hammond: I may be mistaken but my recollection of our discussions in Committee is that the word "expenses" relates to Scotland. Is that correct? The hon. Gentleman is a lawyer, so he may be able to assist us.

Rob Marris: A Scottish lawyer.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge helps me enormously. As I said, there is no preparation time in the EAT and the Scottish term for costs is indeed expenses.
	On that note, I hope that the House will support the motion.
	Lords amendment agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 27 to 30 agreed to.

Clause 24
	 — 
	Conciliation

Lords amendment: No. 31.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments Nos. 32, 33, 78, 80 and 91.

Alan Johnson: Amendment No. 31 deletes subsection (3)(a). It is a minor amendment that relates to the processing of tribunal claims between the Employment Tribunals Service and ACAS. Our intention was to provide through regulation a circumstance where uncontested applications would not be passed to ACAS, so that its resources could be better focused on applications where both parties acknowledged the dispute.
	As a result of debates in the other place, however, it became clear that valuable conciliation time could be lost if, rather than sending an application to ACAS immediately, we waited to find out whether the respondent would contest it. The consequence would be a delay before ACAS could begin work and thus a delay to the processing of claims, which is not in the best interests of tribunal users. We believe that the overall user interest should take priority over a small saving of ACAS's time and that, on balance, subsection (3)(a) is undesirable. Accordingly, we drafted amendment No. 31 to delete it.
	The amendment will have the effect that an originating application to an employment tribunal that falls within the duty of ACAS to conciliate will continue to be sent to ACAS immediately. The same applies to notices of appearance.
	Lords amendments Nos. 32 and 33 are technical and consequential on Lords amendment No. 31. Lords amendments Nos. 79, 80 and 91 are also technical and consequential on the removal of section 19(c) of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996, which is affected by clause 24(3)(b). I commend these amendments to the House.

Philip Hammond: The essential point is that Lords amendment No. 31 will remove the discretion to create exceptions by regulation. As the Minister will know, we are always delighted when the scope for discretion by regulation is reduced—something for which we always argue in Committee. It is interesting that the Government appear to have been more readily persuaded of the merits of removing such discretion in the other place. I wonder whether that has something do to with the simple arithmetic that prevails there.
	I am pleased to say that we are delighted with the Lords amendment, which will improve the Bill. I wish that the Minister were able to tell us that many similar amendments would remove such discretion in regulations, but sadly this is the only such change.
	Lords amendment agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 32 and 33 agreed to.

Clause 28
	 — 
	Pre-hearing reviews

Lords amendment: No. 34.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments Nos. 35 and 36.

Alan Johnson: These amendments were made in response to the concern that the power to strike out at a pre-hearing review should be included in the primary legislation, rather than in employment tribunal procedure regulations. In particular, the concern was that striking out at the pre-hearing review stage might be permissible in circumstances that go beyond those in which striking out is possible at other stages in the proceedings.
	We had always intended that strike-out at the pre-hearing review would be possible on very limited grounds, not going beyond those permitted elsewhere in the tribunal rules. Those grounds are failure to comply with an order or direction imposed by the tribunal, or when the originating application or notice of appearance or anything in it is scandalous, misconceived or vexatious. Hence we were content to spell that out in the Bill, which is what these amendments do, so I ask the House to support them.
	Lords amendment No. 34 agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 35 and 36 agreed to.

Clause 31
	 — 
	Non-completion of statutory procedure: adjustment of awards

Lords amendment: No. 37.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments Nos. 46 to 55.

Alan Johnson: Amendments Nos. 46 to 55 simplify the compensation regime, as originally set out in clause 38, for failure to comply, in certain circumstances, with the requirement to provide employees with a written statement of employment particulars. They necessitate a consequential amendment to clause 31, which is why they are being discussed now.
	Clause 38 provides that when an employee brings a successful claim to a tribunal under one of the jurisdictions set out in schedule 5 and the tribunal finds that his employer failed to comply with the written statement requirements, the employer will be liable to a financial penalty for that failure. That policy is unchanged. As the clause was originally drafted, however, the penalty would normally take the form of a 5 to 25 per cent. uplift to the employee's award. If compensation was not the remedy chosen by the tribunal, or was not available for a particular jurisdiction, the employee would instead receive one or two weeks' pay, depending on whether the statement was incomplete, inaccurate or had not been supplied at all.
	One or two weeks' pay also served as the floor for any percentage uplift. That was never an easy system to explain, and it was criticised in another place for its complexity.We are confident that the underlying policy is right—the policy of encouraging employers to recognise the importance of the written statement in the employment relationship. Indeed, it was welcomed by the majority of respondents to consultation. On reflection, however, we agree that the penalty regime as originally drafted was needlessly complex.
	Taken together, these amendments therefore replace the percentage uplift system with a simple fixed-rate penalty of two or four weeks' pay. As before, the penalty will be awarded if the written statement is incomplete, inaccurate or absent, or if notification of any change to the particulars had not been given. Whether two or four weeks' pay is awarded, however, will not be linked to the particular failure. Whether to award the higher or lower penalty will be at the tribunal's discretion. If the tribunal thought that it was right in particular circumstances, it could award a higher penalty for an inaccurate statement than for failure to issue one at all. We believe that tribunals will find the fixed-rate penalty regime considerably easier to administer than the percentage system. Moreover, we believe that it will fulfil our policy aims just as effectively.

Philip Hammond: As the Minister said, the substantive amendments are to clause 38. I recognise that the Government were criticised in the other place for the complexity of the penalty regime that would apply when an employer failed to deliver particulars of employment as required by the law. The original scheme involved a percentage uplift of the award that was made by the tribunal. The cost that the employer would suffer for the failure to deliver particulars would be determined by reference to the award that was made against him. That seems to have a lot of attraction to it. I accept that it is a little more complex but, as I understand it, the intention is not to fine the employer for having failed to deliver particulars of employment. Were that the purpose, the sensible way to proceed would be to introduce a mechanism into the relevant primary legislation to impose a fine on an employer for failure to deliver particulars—that fine would go to the court and not to the employee in question.
	The purpose, however, is to ensure that when an employee has a legitimate grievance, and that grievance is recognised by the tribunal in making an award, the aggravation of that grievance by the failure to deliver a proper statement of particulars is recognised in a percentage uplift in the award. The degree to which the monetary sum by which the employer's failure to deliver the statement of particulars translates into an award to the employee would therefore be related to the severity of the underlying legitimate grievance, if the tribunal finds that there has been a legitimate grievance and it makes an award to recognise it. One would at least hope that the size of the award will reflect the seriousness of the grievance. Moving away from that arrangement, the Government are introducing a fixed penalty for failure to deliver a notice of particulars of employment in the proper form.
	I have no problem with the Minister's view that employers should deliver the proper particulars of employment. We discussed that in Committee, and the view across the Committee was that, if clearly set out statements of particulars are delivered, there is scope for avoiding significant numbers of disputes by making sure that everybody is very clear about the terms on which they are employed. I am not sure, however, that a fixed fine going into the pocket of the employee—let us say that the employee earns £200 a week, and the fixed penalty is therefore £200 or £400—is particularly appropriate if the substantive grievance is deemed to be worth only £100. It would seem odd if the employee were awarded £100 in respect of the substantive grievance, but had that uplifted by perhaps £200—a week's pay—because the employer has not delivered the statement. Has the Minister thought through how that will work, and the different relationship between the basic award and the amount of uplift that the amendment introduces?
	Another point needs to be made. Under the Bill that was originally passed by the House, the appropriate amount was one or two weeks' pay. The Minister, in his remarks a few moments ago, glibly doubled that to two or four weeks' pay. That is a substantial movement of the goalposts. What has caused the Minister to decide that two or four weeks' pay is appropriate now, given that when the Bill left the House on Third Reading some four or five months ago, one or two weeks' pay was the appropriate amount?
	Will the Minister also comment further on the abandonment of the concept—which was clearly enshrined in the Bill and considered in great detail in Committee—of two levels of wrongdoing associated with particulars of employment? As he said earlier, the first level is a gross failure to deliver a statement of particulars, and the second, lesser mischief, is delivery of a statement that is inaccurate or that fails to comply with the requirements of the legislation. Suddenly, that is to be swept away, and the two levels—the higher levels of two or four weeks' pay—are to be awarded entirely at the discretion of the tribunal.
	A significant change of position seems to have taken place: two or four weeks' pay is now the penalty, instead of one or two weeks' pay, and the two-tier approach has been removed in favour of a single-tier approach, with the tribunal having discretion beyond that. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain further the thinking behind those two changes.

Alan Johnson: I shall try to do so. The important point to remember is that, as the hon. Gentleman said, concerns have been expressed about complexity. He referred to the original proposal for a penalty of one or two weeks' pay. First, that served as the floor for any percentage uplift—it was the minimum. Secondly, as I said in my opening comments, if compensation was not the remedy chosen by the tribunal, or was not available for a particular jurisdiction, the employee would instead receive one or two weeks' pay, depending on whether the statement was incomplete, inaccurate or had not been supplied at all. On top of that, there was a percentage uplift of between 5 and 25 per cent.
	The hon. Gentleman suggests that we are punishing employers too much by turning to a simple compensation formula of two or four weeks' pay rather than the old formula, which had a fixed element and a percentage award on top. I do not think that we are doing that. Let us not forget that the maximum payment is £250 a week and is based on the statutory payments written into the redundancy and other legislation. A tribunal will have the discretion to decide to go to the top or bottom end of the range of compensation, and the maximum compensation will be £1,000. Last year, the average award for unfair dismissal was £2,700.

Philip Hammond: The Minister says that the average compensation for unfair dismissal was £2,700, but he suggested earlier that the average award at a tribunal was somewhat lower than that. We therefore need to consider the uplift in the context of the average award made at tribunals and not just for one particular class of action.

Alan Johnson: The average cost award was £300, but I am now referring to the average compensation for unfair dismissal. That is not the same. I am referring not to vexatious or even frivolous litigation, but to a clear-cut case found against an employer in which it was discovered that no written statement of particulars was issued. In that context, the average award of £2,700 for unfair dismissal is perhaps more relevant than the average cost award of £300.

Philip Hammond: The Minister is missing my point, but I may be missing something too. Let my try to clarify my question. Claims other than those for unfair dismissal go to tribunals and I was hoping that the Minister would give the House the average award—not the costs and not just the average award made at cases of unfair dismissal—that tribunals made in the last year for which figures are available.

Alan Johnson: That is a fair point. I do not have the figures for average awards across the board. However, I know that the majority of cases—about 51 per cent.—are for unfair dismissal. In a sense, however, this issue is irrelevant to the argument.
	The argument is whether the system was needlessly complex when it left the House. We were convinced by the debates in the House of Lords that it was and that we could simplify the system. We do not believe that we have taken away a tribunal's discretion to decide, and the provision is not linked as closely as it was to failings in the statement of employment terms and conditions. We have given more discretion to the employment tribunals but in a different way, with the matter being based on between two and four weeks' pay. I urge the House to agree to this sensible amendment.
	Lords amendment agreed to.
	Lords amendments Nos. 38 to 55 agreed to.

Clause 39
	 — 
	Compromise agreements

Lords amendment: No. 56.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may discuss Lords amendments Nos. 88 to 90 and 92 to 95.

Alan Johnson: The lead amendment will delete clause 39, which is on the expansion of the scope of compromise agreements. Grouped with it are a number of consequential amendments that undo various repeals and revocations that we would have had to make through schedule 8 had the clause remained in the Bill.
	Clause 39 was debated in great detail in Committee in the other place in March, and some serious concerns were raised about potentially damaging effects. The Government promised to consider those arguments, which we duly did. On 30 April, in answer to a question from Lord McCarthy, my noble Friend Lord Sainsbury announced that the Government had decided to delete the clause. That was done on Report in the House of Lords. We explained in that debate that we did not necessarily agree with all the legal arguments advanced by Lord Wedderburn about the meaning of the case law, and especially with his interpretation of the recent BCCI v. Ali case in regard to the scope of compromise agreements.
	In a sense, it is a question of risk assessment. In our view, Lord Wedderburn rather overstated the risk that widening the compromise agreements might enable employers to draw up general waivers preventing their employees from ever enforcing their employment rights. We continue to think that that would have been invalid and illegal even if clause 39 had remained. However, we acknowledge the risk, and any risk of such an undesirable outcome is unacceptable. It is undeniable that recent case law has created uncertainty.
	Even more important, we recognise the risk that, even though such an agreement would in our view be invalid, a small minority of employers might none the less attempt to persuade their employees to sign one. If that happened, the fact that its legal validity was highly questionable would not alter the fact that, having signed the agreement, an employee would be most unlikely ever to go to a tribunal because he would believe that he no longer had the right to do so.
	As we have now made clear on several occasions, the Government are adamant that no employee should be deterred in that way. That was not what clause 39 was about. Its aim was simply to address the concerns of a number of employment lawyers that the scope of compromise agreements was unnecessarily restrictive and that it should be widened to match the scope of settlements conciliated at ACAS. That is a reasonable enough aim, and one with which we agree—but not at the risk of jeopardising employees' rights.
	We considered amending the clause in a way that addressed all the concerns while retaining the original policy objective. In our judgment, there was no legally watertight way of doing that without also having to tinker with the scope of ACAS-conciliated settlements—the so-called COT 3 agreements. COT 3s have worked very well for several years and we had no wish to change their legal scope. We therefore concluded that we should delete the clause completely.
	I hope that the House will agree to Lords amendment No. 56 and to the others grouped with it.

Philip Hammond: I have no quarrel with the substance of what is being done, but it is worth the House taking a moment to consider how near we came to what might have been a legislative disaster. Clause 39 was not debated in Standing Committee in the Commons, because of the operation of a timetable. That meant that the Bill went to the Lords without the clause having been discussed in the minute detail that it was in the other place. By the Minister's own admission, Government legislation went through the House of Commons essentially on the nod. Fortunately, the intervention of Lord Wedderburn in the other place drew to the Government's attention what the Minister acknowledges are possible dangers with the clause.
	I have nothing to say about the substance of the issue. I am prepared to defer to Lord Wedderburn's analysis and to assume that the Government, having had the problem drawn to their attention, have considered the matter carefully and decided, on the balance of potential harm, that it is better to delete the clause. However, I ask the House to consider what would have happened had the regime of rigorous timetabling that now dominates and controls all proceedings in this place already been extended to the other place. The House of Lords frequently annoys the Government's business managers by voting when they would like it not to vote and, occasionally, by winning Divisions that they did not sanction it to win. Sadly, except on Fridays, this place seldom does that.
	I hope that, in announcing the Government's decision to remove clause 39, the Minister acknowledges the vital role that the other place often, sadly, has to perform on its own because we do not have the opportunity to do our job properly under the timetabling regime. Having recognised that vital role, I hope that the Minister will at least place on the record his determination never to support any attempt to curtail debate in the other place.

Tony Lloyd: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but he might want to reflect on a couple of things, one of which is the role of Opposition and Labour Back Benchers in ensuring that time allocated in a timetable motion is used to concentrate on the most important aspects of a Bill. If there is a failure, it is a collective one for which the Opposition themselves have to take some responsibility. One way to avoid the problem is to consider seriously pre-scrutiny of legislation. I know that discussion of that would take us wide of the amendments and I do not want to detain the House on such matters, but the hon. Gentlemen should consider whether pre-scrutiny would have helped the House enormously on clause 39.

Philip Hammond: I do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman's first point. By and large, the Committee managed its time well. Very few clauses were not discussed as a result of the guillotine. The fault and responsibility must lie with those who needlessly impose a guillotine on a Bill's consideration in Committee.
	I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's comments on pre-legislative scrutiny. I intend to watch with great interest the Government's response to the communications Bill, which is undergoing pre-legislative scrutiny. Their response to the previous Bill that went through pre-legislative scrutiny was not to change it, notwithstanding the Committee's hard work. I hope that the Government will respond constructively to the recommendations this time. However, I am surprised that I have managed to say so much on that subject, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall not try your patience further.
	I look forward to what the Minister has to say about what was a narrow escape. I hope that he will give credit where it is due to our noble Friends collectively—Lord Wedderburn of course sits on the Labour Benches—for rescuing the Government from what could have been a serious embarrassment.

Mark Prisk: I share my hon. Friend's surprise at the pattern of events. In all the consultation and during the Bill's proceedings in this House, clause 39 did not divide opinion, although unfortunately we did not have much time to discuss it. Its sudden last-minute removal suggests either a fundamental flaw that was overlooked or that some undue pressure, to which I hope the Minister did not succumb, was brought to bear.
	I have a couple of points to raise. The Government's original case for clause 39 was that it would create consistency with ACAS's conciliation process. Indeed, the Government's explanatory note states:
	"The Government's objective in making this change is to ensure that compromise agreements are as effective and as wide in extent as ACAS conciliated settlements."
	There was a clear intent to bring the two together. The clause's deletion suggests that one part of the Bill is going in a different direction from the rest of it. I hope that the Minister will clarify that.
	My second point relates to the benefit that many business representatives thought would arise. The clause provided closure because it meant that there would be a complete settlement. For example, had a severance package been settled for a redundancy, the clause would have allowed it to hold and it could not have been challenged subsequently. It appears that, out of the blue, unexpected case law has railroaded the clause to one side. Why has the Minister decided not to amend the clause? Is it because it is unamendable, or at least unamendable in the time remaining? Do the Government intend to reintroduce the substance of the clause at a later stage? It would help us all to hear answers to those questions.

Tony Lloyd: I congratulate the Government on listening to our noble Friend Lord Wedderburn. Clearly there was sufficient uncertainty, as hon. Members on both sides of the House accept, and it would have been imprudent to proceed with the clause. My hon. Friend was right to remove it. Sometimes it is better to be kind to a Minister, and we should recognise that he reached the right conclusion as a result of intense debate in the House of Lords. We will improve the Bill by accepting the amendment, and he deserves credit for his approach.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) has had a bee in his bonnet about the timetable from day one. The timetable is not a matter for me, but if we had had all the time that he wanted—we did manage to fit in a few extra Committee sittings—I doubt whether hon. Members would have focused on clause 39 to the extent that he suggests.

Philip Hammond: As the Minister mentions the extra sittings, the House should know that the Government introduced a major new clause. Two eminently well qualified and experienced employment lawyers—one Liberal Member and one Labour Member—served on the Committee. I do not share the Minister's doubts about whether one of them would have picked up the problem with clause 39.

Alan Johnson: I am trying hard to pay a compliment to the hon. Gentleman. All Committee members, including the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), did their job properly. Scrutiny has been mentioned. I think that clause 39 was the only provision on which there was unanimous agreement in the consultation. We agreed that it was a small, sensible tidying-up measure. It allowed compromise agreements, which happen rarely and require the endorsement of, for example, a trade union official or solicitor, to bring a dispute to a conclusion. Such decisions would not go through conciliation, ACAS arbitration or an employment tribunal.
	Lawyers explained that it was crazy that such decisions did not have the same scope as ACAS-conciliated settlements. It is a minor point. Opposition Members may not have debated that clause, but they would have read it. The hon. Member for North Norfolk and my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) were keen on reading every esoteric part of every clause, for which I give them due credit, and I doubt whether they turned a hair when they read clause 39.
	We should pay tribute to Lords Wedderburn and McCarthy. Hon. Members may remember that the matter was portrayed, not by them but by a journalist, as part of a covert agenda by the Government to get employees to sign away their right to go back to an employment tribunal in any future case. When the press reacts like that to a clause whose ramifications seem to us so minimal, we need to consider carefully whether to withdraw it on the basis that it is more trouble than it is worth or to amend it. It is not a central element of the Bill, and no party ever suggested that it was.

Norman Lamb: I join the Minister in paying tribute to Lord Wedderburn for identifying the disaster that could have occurred if the provision had been accepted. Clearly, it could have led to many employees losing basic rights under pressure from their employers, so it is right that it has been deleted. However, the Minister was wrong to say that compromise agreements are rarely used. In fact, they are frequently used, and were being used every week in our office to conclude agreements. These days, they are a common way of settling a case.
	As the Minister rightly said, the sensible purpose behind the clause was to bring compromise agreements into line with ACAS agreements. Does he intend to return to the issue to address the concerns that led to the clause being included in the first place, or will he simply leave the law as it stands?

Alan Johnson: The hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) asked whether we considered alternative amendments, and we did. It was too great a risk to leave the Bill as it was, and the amendments would have resulted in a cure that was worse than the disease. If we amended the Bill to deal with ACAS-conciliated settlements and left the so-called COT 3 agreements as they were, there would have been a feeling that the latter did not provide the same protection, so we would have had to amend them. Given that the provision is not central to the aims of hon. Members on either side of the House, we ask the House to support the amendment to delete clause 39 in its entirety.
	We are consulting ACAS about what we can do to redress the situation. I accept what the hon. Member for North Norfolk said about compromise agreements being more frequent than I had thought, although that is not a big deal. They will remain as they are, and we will encourage their use. All that is missing is this minor but sensible tidying up to give them exactly the same status as ACAS-conciliated settlements.
	We should not talk about close shaves but commend the Houses of Parliament for having done their job of scrutiny. The Law Lords have a particular locus in dealing with such issues, and the points made by Lords Wedderburn and McCarthy related to a recent case, BCCI v. Ali. We should not suggest that the fact that the clause passed through the Committee was in any way indicative of a lack of scrutiny in this House.

Philip Hammond: The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) asked the Minister whether the Government will return to compromise agreements. It became apparent, as the Minister acknowledged, that the Minister may have been misinformed about the extent to which they are used. It is slightly alarming that the Government are legislating without being aware of the basic facts. Can the hon. Gentleman's Department collect data about the number of compromise agreements being reached, because it is difficult to see how, without it, the Government can make an informed decision about what needs to be done?

Alan Johnson: Hon. Members should not take that error as any reflection on my Department; it was my error. I did not read my brief correctly and mixed up one aspect of employment law with another. I am sure that we do know the number of compromise agreements, and I shall write to the hon. Gentleman and let him know what it is.
	Lords amendment agreed to.
	New clause

Power to confer rights on individuals: amendment

Lords amendment: No. 57.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
	This is a technical amendment that does not in any way alter the scope of the power in section 23 of the Employment Relations Act 1999. The power enables the Secretary of State to confer employment rights on individuals who do not currently have them. The amendment's effect is that we would need to confer rights on individuals by an order that amended existing legislation and not by an order that just spelt out the rights to be extended. It would not alter the rights that we could confer, the individuals on whom we could confer them or the way in which any rights conferred would work in practice.
	We listened to the opinions of the noble Lords in debating this issue. They argued strongly that the words "or otherwise" were not appropriate and gave the Secretary of State additional powers to extend rights other than by a statutory instrument. On balance, we considered that since the words "or otherwise" had been understood in that way, we should not retain the current wording simply on the basis that it gave us some flexibility. The advice of Lords Ackner and Brightman cannot lightly be set aside.
	The amendment may not please the draftsman should we decide to use the power under section 23, but I hope that it will alleviate concerns raised in the other place that we were intending to circumvent Parliament by use of the words "or otherwise". Removing those words will not limit the scope for conferring statutory employment rights on individuals to whom the rights do not currently apply. As Members will be aware, a review of employment status in relation to statutory employment rights is under way, and we intend to publish a discussion document on employment status this month.

Philip Hammond: The story behind the amendment is extraordinary. I take issue with the Minister when he says in one breath that this is a technical amendment and in the next that the opinions of Lords Ackner and Brightman cannot be lightly dismissed. Lord Ackner opened his speech on Third Reading in the other place by saying:
	"This is not a small and technical matter, as the Minister said".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 June 2002; Vol. 636, c. 1530.]
	Ministers in the other place sought to present this as a technical matter, and the Minister has repeated that this afternoon, but that is not so.
	The Minister, like his noble but sometimes discourteous Friend Lord Sainsbury, also managed to avoid giving any credit to my noble Friend Baroness Miller of Hendon, without whose unstinting determination this amendment would not have been brought to the attention of Lords Ackner and Brightman and, ultimately, accepted by the Government. Indeed, Baroness Miller had to table the amendment three times and put up with a good deal of rather ungentlemanly ridicule from the Government Dispatch Box before the wisdom of what she was advocating came to be recognised. She apologised on Third Reading when she introduced this amendment for the third time, explaining that she was
	"compelled to do so by the Government's obdurate refusal"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 June 2002; Vol. 636, c. 1528.]
	to accept the deletion of the two offending words from the Employment Relations Act 1989.
	When I read the Lords debate, I was disappointed and, frankly, surprised to note the patronising tone with which Ministers in that place, who seem to be far less courteous than their counterparts in this place, dealt with my noble Friend. Many of my hon. Friends will know Baroness Miller well, and would know better than to step in her way when she is determined to achieve something. Terriers with bones have nothing on my noble Friend.
	Apparently, Lord Sainsbury was not aware of my noble Friend's reputation and determination. The first time that she tabled the amendment, he sought to dismiss it by making repeated spurious references to someone called Doreen, then essentially telling her to go back to her kitchen sink and stop meddling in matters that did not concern her. The second time that she tabled it, the noble Baroness was told that the matter was trivial and technical, and that she had failed to understand it. It is remarkable that she was prepared to persist as she did, ultimately engaging the eminent and learned Lords Ackner and Brightman in considering the matter more carefully. In their speeches on Third Reading in the other place, they made it clear that the issue needed to be dealt with.
	The original provision in section 23 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 says that the Secretary of State has the power to confer certain rights on individuals. Subsection (5) states:
	"An order under this section may make provision in such way as the Secretary of State thinks fit, whether by amending Acts or instruments or otherwise."
	Several months ago, my noble Friend brought that section of the 1999 Act to the shadow Department of Trade and Industry meeting and asked all of us around the table if any of us had any idea what "or otherwise" meant. I have to confess that we were unable to help her. She went the Library and asked them to search for any elucidation as what the phrase "or otherwise" means, but they told her that they were unable to help. On 4 December, the Minister, Lord Sainsbury, told the noble Baroness that the purpose of the words "or otherwise" was:
	"'intended to ensure that an order under section 23 could also apply to rights to individuals by means of a free-standing provision rather than an amendment.'"
	So my noble Friend, tenacious as ever, went back to the Library and asked them to look up a legislative device known as a free-standing instrument, but they could not find one, and we came to the conclusion that the law knows of no such instrument.
	On Third Reading, my noble Friend tabled the amendment yet again, albeit to a different part of the Bill. Originally, with typical humility, she tabled it as a minor and consequential amendment, but having listened to Lords Ackner and Brightman she realised that it should not relate to the clause entitled "Minor and Consequential Amendments" because it was not a minor change, but a very significant one. She therefore moved the amendment to the appropriate part of the Bill. When the Minister responded to the debate, he appeared at first to be sticking to his guns. He said:
	"However, it is still my view that it does no such thing."
	That is, that the provision did not have the implications that the noble Baroness was suggesting. But the Minister was visibly affected by the interventions of Lords Ackner and Brightman, and I understand that a scurry of paper support was forthcoming during the time when he was on his feet. Having spent nearly two columns of Lords Hansard explaining why my noble Friend was wrong, at the end he capitulated in one paragraph by saying:
	"In view of the very strong pleas by both noble and learned Lords"—
	no reference to my noble Friend—
	"that they do not believe the Government's measure is appropriate, on balance we are prepared to accept the amendment."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 June 2002; Vol. 636, c. 1529–34.]
	That was after taking up some 15 minutes of the House's time explaining why my noble Friend was still wrong.

Rob Marris: I am slightly confused, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman could elucidate something for me. He referred to a free-standing provision and said that when the noble Lady looked for it in the Library she found that there was no such instrument. Did the Law Lords suggest that a constitutional innovation had been made in the Bill, or did they say something else that persuaded the learned Lady and the hon. Gentleman that the provision needed to be changed?

Philip Hammond: My noble Friend is not learned in the technical sense. It was Lord Sainsbury who said:
	"'The use of 'or otherwise' was intended to ensure that an order under section 23 could also apply to rights to individuals by means of a free-standing provision rather than by an amendment.'"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 June 2002; Vol. 636, c. 1529.]
	The Minister himself introduced the concept of the free-standing provision, which, as it turned out, did not take the debate much further.

Mark Prisk: Is my hon. Friend aware that in addition to the apparent confusion there seems to be a direct contradiction in what Lord Sainsbury said? In December he wrote to the noble Baroness saying that the words do not extend the powers of the Secretary of State, yet he told the Grand Committee on 22 April:
	"'The noble Baroness's amendment would simply take away the current flexibility for the Secretary of State to extend rights in a way that is best from a drafting point of view.'"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 June 2002; Vol. 636, c. 701.]
	Does my hon. Friend share my concern that such contradictions undermine confidence in the way in which the Bill is being presented?

Philip Hammond: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. There were several contradictions in what the Minister in the other place said in the course of debates on the amendment. We may be talking about an unusual case in the other place and an unusual Standing Committee in this place, but in reading the debates I was struck by the fact that the courtesy that was extended by and to hon. Members on both sides during the Committee looks rather good in comparison to what went on in the Lords, where one typically expects to see higher standards of courtesy than those that we extend to each other in this place.
	The substantive point that concerns me is that on three occasions the Minister sought to rubbish my noble Friend's amendment, both in terms of its substance and his argument against it and of the rather patronising and disparaging remarks that he made during his speeches. On three occasions he said that the amendment was misguided, unnecessary and did not do what the noble Baroness thought it did, yet at the end of the third such dismissal of her amendment, he capitulated, saying to the House:
	"In view of the very strong pleas by both noble and learned Lords . . . on balance we are prepared to accept the amendment."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 June 2002; Vol. 636, c. 1534.]
	That is not the way to conduct legislation. Either the noble Lord believes that the amendment is unnecessary, argues his case and stands his ground, or he accepts, with some humility, that he was wrong on the two previous occasions, that he owes my noble Friend an apology, and that the Government were accepting the amendment on the basis of solid argument, not as an afterthought because it was nearly dinner time and they could not be bothered to argue the case any longer. The way in which the matter was conducted in the other place has not enhanced the reputation of Parliament and compares unfavourably with the way in which the consideration of the Bill—I do not say all Bills, but this Bill—has been conducted in this place.
	Given that I am happy again to put on record that the Minister has been far more gracious than his noble Friend appears to have been to my noble Friend, I hope that he will place on record an acknowledgement that it was her hard work and persistence, in the face of repeated and sometimes rather unsavoury stonewalling by the Minister in the other place, that ensured that this important amendment has been made to the Bill.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman took about 12 minutes to make a meal of what happened in the Lords. He told a fascinating story of intrigue, conflict and passion which set the blood racing through my veins. I am very happy to pay tribute to Baroness Miller, whose role is clearly set out in my brief, although I did not mention her contribution in my speech.
	Just as Baroness Miller personifies tenacity, my noble Friend Lord Sainsbury personifies courtesy and politeness. The picture of my noble Friend painted by the hon. Gentleman is unrecognisable. I would have thought that Baroness Miller would be the last person to suggest that my noble Friend was in any way discourteous or patronising. It is not in his blood to be that way. He would probably find it physically impossible to behave like that—unlike me; I am just a ruffian.

Philip Hammond: Baroness Blatch was moved immediately the Minister sat down on Third Reading in the other place to say that, in not acknowledging the role of my noble Friends,
	"the Minister has been extremely ungracious"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 June 2002; Vol. 636, c. 1534.]
	This is not just my view; it was that of my noble Friend and, I suspect, other Members of the other place at the time.

Alan Johnson: It all sounds like a rowdy evening down at the Red Lion. The House of Lords doubtless gets into that state occasionally.
	I will pay tribute to Baroness Miller for her contribution. I also pay tribute to my noble Friend Lord Sainsbury and his colleagues for doing an exceptional job on this Bill in the House of Lords for many weeks and even months. I am happy that on this issue we have reached a sensible conclusion, and I hope that the House accepts the Lords amendment.
	Lords amendment agreed to.

Clause 43
	 — 
	Union learning representatives

Lords amendment No. 58

Alan Johnson: I beg to move that this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments Nos. 59 and 60.

Alan Johnson: Amendments Nos. 58 and 59 deal with the order-making power under subsection (6). They make that order-making power subject to the affirmative procedure. That should ensure adequate scrutiny.
	Amendment No. 60 has a similar effect. It ensures that the issuing of a code of practice under the clause is always subject to affirmative procedure. We think that both Houses should have the opportunity to scrutinise and debate the codes. Amendment No. 60 therefore ensures that if ACAS produces one or both of the codes, their issuing would always be subject to the affirmative procedure.
	These are largely technical amendments, and I commend them to the House.

Philip Hammond: Once again, the Minister tells us that the amendments are largely technical, but if I understand it correctly—I stand to be corrected by the Minister—the effect of the principal amendment in the group is far from technical. It means that the procedure by which orders made by statutory instrument giving effect to the proposed rights for union learning representatives will be made under the affirmative rather than the negative procedure.
	All Ministers and Under-Secretaries who have to deal with the Opposition's persistent attempts to amend legislation in Committee will know that one of the routine amendments tabled by Opposition Members is to invoke the affirmative procedure, in order to ensure that proper scrutiny of the measures introduced by statutory instrument is available to Members of both Houses of Parliament. We believe that that is extremely important. So, for the Minister simply to suggest that moving from the negative to the affirmative procedure is a technical matter is slightly disingenuous.
	If the Minister had been able to concede a change from the negative to the affirmative procedure in other parts of the Bill, and indeed if Ministers in general had been able to do so for parts of other Bills, their opposite numbers on the Opposition Benches would have acknowledged that their concession was far from technical and in fact significant.
	This is not an uncontentious area of policy. By means of statutory instrument, orders will be made to give effect to the proposed new rights for union learning representatives. I know that the House would not wish me to rehearse in their entirety the arguments in Committee about the wisdom or otherwise of imposing union learning representatives by statute. We acknowledge that in some workplaces they provide a constructive addition to the machinery of employee-management co-operation, and often play an important role in ensuring that skills and learning in the workplace are properly attended to. However, we and many outside organisations have expressed serious reservations about whether the same beneficial effects can be achieved when their role is imposed by statute as opposed to being negotiated between the parties in the workplace. So there is a great deal of attention focused on this clause.

George Osborne: Does my hon. Friend remember from our Standing Committee debates that, according to the Government, the clause will lead to a massive expansion in the number of union learning representatives from just 3,000 now to 22,300 in eight years' time? [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] The cheers from Labour Members confirm that when their campaigns are funded by the trade unions, they pay back the favour when they are elected.

Philip Hammond: My hon. Friend is right; the proposal represents a massive expansion of trade union power. No one would argue with the introduction of learning representatives by consensus, where they will be able to deliver genuine benefit to workers and employers alike, as they have in many workplaces. The Government tell us that such representatives have had a positive effect in workplaces—ergo, if they are imposed by statute in all workplaces where unions are recognised, they will have a positive effect. I must tell the Minister that that is a serious non sequitur. We have severe doubts about the overall impact that the legislation will have if learning representatives are imposed in workplaces where industrial relations are not mature enough for them to prosper and serve the intended purpose.
	The Economic Secretary countered the argument by telling the Committee how good the imposition of learning representatives would be for businesses and how all sensible, forward-looking employers would welcome their imposition by statute. I should make it clear that it was not the Minister for Employment Relations, Industry and the Regions who dealt with this clause in Committee.
	When the Economic Secretary was challenged to say how many union learning representatives there were in his Department, as an enlightened employer, the answer turned out to be zero. One is bound to ask why, if it is so self-evident that introducing union learning representatives into a workplace is of huge benefit to the employer, Government Departments have not done so and, it appears, will do so only when required by statute. Perhaps these representatives are of such huge benefit to the employer that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, should consider whether Departments are passing up an opportunity to make themselves more efficient and effective.

Mark Prisk: The Minister said that the proposals have been warmly welcomed, yet we have learned of opposition on a number of occasions. For example, the Engineering Employers Federation said:
	"The statutory imposition of this privilege will not improve employer relations, productivity or the learning levels of employees".
	Does my hon. Friend agree that the way forward, as the federation suggests, is to act co-operatively? Is it not time that the Minister was honest and admitted that there has been clear opposition from many employers' groups?

Philip Hammond: My hon. Friend is right—there has been clear opposition from many employer groups, and it is pretty obvious that union learning reps can play a useful role in the workplace when they are introduced by consensus. They cannot deliver the same beneficial effect if they are imposed by statute. The Government's agenda in introducing statutory union learning reps is about repaying debts to their trade union paymasters. British business will pay the Labour party's election debts.

Rob Marris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Hammond: No, because I think that the hon. Gentleman will want to catch your eye in a moment, Mr. Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] He has indicated that he intends to do so, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
	The issues to be dealt with by statutory instrument are significant for employers, so it is very important indeed to ensure that the Government are not pushed by trade union pressure beyond the point that they have agreed on. I therefore very much welcome the decision to make the measures subject to the affirmative procedure.

Rob Marris: All I wanted to ask the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) was where does the Bill say that union learning reps are being imposed? It simply talks about time off for union learning reps—it does not talk about their imposition, which the hon. Gentleman fears may damage industrial relations. Surely, the provision is about time off, not the fact that they exist, which may be one reason why, in a country with independent trade unions, the Minister could not say how many union learning reps there are in his Department?

Alan Johnson: I am pleased that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) supports the amendment which, I am afraid, is definitely technical. I did not say that it was a small or insubstantial technical amendment; I merely said that it was technical.
	This general issue has been debated many times, and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury did a tremendous job of dealing with it in Committee. I shall be as gentle as possible to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge, as my criticism is not about him personally but about his party. The Opposition will have returned from the planet Zog when they no longer describe a modest proposal such as this amendment as a massive extension of trade union power. They should go and lie in a dark room, take a couple of tablets, and take another look at our proposal.

Mark Prisk: The Minister knows perfectly well, from Committee and Second Reading, that all the employers' organisations have said that this measure is of grave concern for large businesses and particularly for small ones. To sweep that concern aside, as the hon. Gentleman has tried to do, is not representative of his contribution to the Bill. It is a shame that he has adopted that attitude today.

Alan Johnson: Yes, I know of employers' concerns. However, I merely make the point that the proposal is not about a massive extension of trade union power.

Judy Mallaber: Does my hon. Friend agree that the amazing fuss about this in Committee seemed to demonstrate that the Opposition think that 20,000 trade union members are desperate to spend all their time organising all that learning? Of course, it is valuable to have union learning reps to assist and encourage trade unionists and workers in the workplace to take up learning opportunities, but it is often difficult to get people to take on that responsibility, even though they may wish to do so, because they can feel that they will be under even more pressure at work as they will not be given any assistance at all by their employers. In fact, if they knew—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady has been here long enough to know the difference between an intervention and a speech.

Alan Johnson: I agree with my hon. Friend, who made an eloquent point. This is a modest proposal, which seeks to build on something that we initiated in 1997, which has become extremely popular with employers. It adds a new dimension to opportunities for lifelong learning, which were a manifesto commitment. We have met many employers' concerns and we shall look back—even Opposition Members will—in five years' time and wonder what all the fuss was about. I hope that the House supports the amendment.
	Lords amendment agreed to.
	Lords amendments 59, 60 and 61 agreed to.

Schedule 2
	 — 
	Statutory Dispute Resolution Procedures

Lords amendment: No. 62.

Alan Johnson: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to consider Lords amendments 63 to 74.

Alan Johnson: Schedule 2 contains the text of the statutory dispute resolution procedures, which are the cornerstone of part 3, and have naturally attracted much discussion both here and in another place.
	During and after the Committee stage, I said that we were prepared to look further at two aspects of the statutory procedures in response to points made by hon. Members—whether the statutory procedures could refer in some way to the need to investigate complaints, and whether they could refer to the right to be accompanied. We have since considered those issues in detail, and the Government introduced amendments in the other place, which deal adequately with those concerns.

Valerie Davey: In that further consideration, is the issue of bullying at work taken seriously by the Government?

Alan Johnson: I can assure my hon. Friend that it is. A private Member's Bill has been introduced on bullying, and we are pursuing the issue with the Health and Safety Executive, which is the right forum for tackling the problem.
	We considered the issues in detail, and the Government introduced amendments in the other place which deal adequately with Members' concerns. In addition, their lordships raised new issues about the statutory procedures, to which we responded with amendments to the schedule. For example, they expressed concern that the procedures may inadvertently interfere with employees' rights to make protected disclosures about wrongdoing.
	I shall describe in a little more detail the changes to be made by the amendments. First, Lords amendments Nos. 62, 63, 66, 67, 71 and 72 ensure that where the statutory procedures require the parties to write to each other, they can do so by sending either a copy or the original of the written communication. Previously, the schedule required them to send a copy on all occasions. That is a sensible change, which removes the possibility that parties may accidentally fail to follow the procedures. Lords amendment No. 68 is a technical amendment, which removes inconsistent wording from the standard grievance procedure. Where the statutory procedures require parties to meet, they refer to the holding of "a" or "the" meeting. However, the text of step 2 in the standard grievance procedure refers to the holding of "at least one" meeting. That was unintended, and the amendment ensures that meetings are described in a consistent fashion across the procedures.
	Lords amendments Nos. 64, 65, 69 and 70 deal with investigations, and all arise from the many debates during the passage of this Bill about investigations. We have resisted the idea that the statutory procedures should refer to the investigatory process. The procedures are written as a series of concrete and verifiable actions. The investigatory process cannot be described in similar terms or in a way which would generally apply to many different cases and circumstances. None of the amendments therefore uses the word "investigations". Instead, we have approached the issue from a different angle. Our amendments refer to the outcome of the investigatory process—the information or evidence which it typically uncovers. Accordingly, the amendments place obligations on the parties to disclose the information on which they initiated their action against the other. The requirement to assemble and convey such information would in practice be a strong encouragement to the parties to ensure that an investigation occurs.
	It being Seven o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker, pursuant to Order [this day], put the Questions necessary to bring proceedings on the Lords Amendments to a conclusion.
	Lords amendments Nos. 62 to 95 agreed to [some with Special Entry].

Don Foster: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You may be aware that today the Government published their consultation paper entitled "Local Government Finance Formula Grant Distribution". There was coverage of that document in today's media, which is hardly surprising, as 40 copies of the document were sent last night to various local newspapers. However, no copies of the document were available to Members of Parliament this morning in the Vote Office, and only by lunchtime today were four copies of the document available in the Library.
	Since the document is 194 pages long, it is clearly difficult for the 659 Members of Parliament to have photocopied versions of their own. The only way that I was able to obtain a copy was by sending a member of my staff to sit and camp at the doorstep of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Can you advise me whether it is appropriate for such a document to be made available to the press, but not made available in sufficient quantity to Members of Parliament, who have a real interest in this vital subject?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman will understand that I have no immediate answer to that matter, beyond pointing out that it is a consultation document at this stage. I am sure that his point has been heard and that the matter will be remedied as soon as possible.

Opposition Day
	 — 
	[17th Allotted Day]

Care Homes

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We now come to the debate on the Opposition motion. Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Simon Burns: I beg to move,
	That this House condemns the Government's failure to address the crisis facing care homes for the elderly, which has resulted in the closure of a large number of care homes, with damaging consequences for the sector and for many other aspects of the work of the NHS; remains concerned that the combined impact of the levels of fees paid to care homes by local authorities and the National Minimum Standards will continue to have an adverse impact upon small to medium size care homes in particular, leading to further losses in capacity; regrets that the terms under which the Government introduced 'free nursing care' on 1st October 2001 differ very markedly from those laid out when the draft legislation was under consideration; deplores the increase in the number of elderly people receiving inappropriate care and the large number of hospital beds being blocked and operations being cancelled because of the loss of care home beds into which to discharge hospital patients once their treatment has been completed; and calls on the Government to recognise the damaging effects of this crisis in care on the most vulnerable members of society and swiftly and decisively to end the suffering, disruption and distress that is being caused to the elderly by the Government's policies.
	Society, and each and every one of us, has a duty to ensure that the most vulnerable groups in our community are properly looked after and that they are entitled to a high quality of life, with dignity and proper care. One of the most vulnerable groups in our society are the elderly—many of them frail or infirm, often alone, sometimes confused and frequently worried about their ability to cope and look after themselves.
	Society owes a debt of gratitude to the dedicated people who spend their time and energies looking after those highly vulnerable members of our community, and who devote their lives to enhancing the quality of life of the elderly, and ensuring that they receive the best quality care available and that their homes are indeed "home from home."
	That is why it is so distressing that the Secretary of State for Health expressed the Government's contempt for care homes and the excellent care that they provide when he referred in the House on 26 March to the elderly being "banged up" in care homes. It is deeply offensive and callous for the Secretary of State to denigrate their work in such a demeaning way. Elsewhere, the Government frequently use the language of blame, accusing the elderly of being bed blockers. We in the Opposition are sick and tired of Ministers blaming everyone but themselves for the problems that they cause.
	The Secretary of State and his Ministers may be in a perpetual state of denial, but the sad fact of life is that care of the elderly in this country is in crisis. As the Coalition for Care recently said:
	"Private home owners are on their knees and facing widespread bankruptcy."
	The care home sector has lost more than 2,000 homes—nearly 15 per cent.—and more than 8 per cent. of its capacity since 1997, and there is no sign of care home closures abating. Meanwhile, despite Government promises to help the elderly to live independently, the number of people receiving care in their own homes has declined by 12 per cent. over the past five years.
	The Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), seems to disagree. I remind her that the number of people receiving domiciliary care has declined, although the hours that they receive have increased. Ironically, as the supply of care is dramatically reduced, demand is set to increase radically. We are approaching the stage where families might even have two generations needing care. That reflects the fact that the number of elderly people in Britain is growing rapidly.
	In particular, the number of very elderly—the over-85s, who require the most care—is rising the most rapidly. In 1952 there were 500,000 people over 85. This year there are 1.2 million, and in the next decade the number of over-85-year-olds will increase by a further 250,000.
	One of the greatest threats to long-term care has been the dramatic closure of homes. Both residential and nursing homes have been hit heavily. Indeed, there were more than 2,000 fewer care homes in 2000 than in 1997, with areas such as the south-west and London and the south-east being particularly badly affected.

John Butterfill: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Minister's own figures show that in Bournemouth alone, between 1997 and 2001—that is, last year—the number of care homes has gone down from 261 to 166? That is a 40 per cent. reduction in Bournemouth.

Simon Burns: Sadly, my hon. Friend is right. His example typifies the problem, which I shall elaborate on shortly. That is happening all over the country, as a result of the closure of homes.
	Small homes have been particularly badly hit and the effect of this trend has been greatly to reduce the choice of homes for elderly people, who as a result have to be moved further and further away from where their homes were, and where their families and their friends are. These closures have inevitably resulted in a radical and unprecedented decline in the supply of long-term care places. All over the country, homes are closing and are being lost.

Hilton Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Burns: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make some progress, I shall give way in a moment.
	To give the House some idea of the magnitude of the problem, in the Secretary of State's constituency, Darlington, over the past 18 months, 17 homes have closed, with 499 beds lost. In the region represented by both the Minister of State, Department of Health, the right hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton), and the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Salford (Ms Blears), the number of beds fell by 18 per cent., with a loss of almost 5,400 beds over the past four years. In the region represented by the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Redditch, the number of beds fell by 10 per cent., with a loss of almost 2000 beds. In the region represented by the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), the number of homes fell by 21 per cent., with a loss of 1,350 beds. Since 1998 in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady), 29 residential and care homes have closed, with a loss of 1,683 beds.

Hilton Dawson: The hon. Gentleman makes a strong case for the quality of care in the private sector. I agree with him, but there is also excellent public sector care. However, is he seriously suggesting that the only form of care that we should support for older people is residential care? Surely there is a duty on the part of people who work in residential care to work in clear partnerships with local authorities and health departments to produce new models of flexible care.

Simon Burns: I am certainly not saying what the hon. Gentleman suggests. He can rest assured that I shall shortly deal with his county, Lancashire.
	Sadly, the future looks bleak. A survey that I have carried out over the past two weeks suggests that there is no abatement in the pressures forcing homes to close. Cheltenham, which has already lost 700 beds, is facing a further six home closures. BUPA is carefully considering two of its homes; Devon is losing its last two nursing homes; and three homes are in the process of closing in Kirklees. Reading is facing the closure of a 48-bed home by its own local authority, and South Shropshire has 12 homes under threat of closure. To answer the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), Lancashire is considering closing all its 32 care homes. The hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice), whom I am glad to see in his place, said in this House on 26 February that there was
	"tremendous anxiety for the many elderly people in my constituency. They . . . are fearful about what is to happen."
	He went on to say:
	"We read . . . of people's despair about the proposed closures, yet the area has a Labour MP, a Labour Government, a Labour district council and a Labour county council, so no one else's fingerprints are on it."—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 26 February 2002; Vol. 380, c. 177WH.]
	Sadly, the hon. Gentleman is correct: the closures indeed bear the fingerprints of this Labour Government. They are all over them, and like a rabbit blinded in the headlights of an oncoming car, this Government do nothing except bandy around disingenuous statistics.
	If we are going to talk about statistics, the truth is that the overall number of beds lost in this country since 1997 is 46,700—a loss of more than 8 per cent. of capacity in only five years. Independent research commissioned by the Labour-dominated Select Committee on Health has confirmed those figures, which coincide with those produced by an equally independent source—Laing and Buisson.

Edward Garnier: Does my hon. Friend also realise that the Labour Government's fingerprints are to be found in Conservative Market Harborough? Lenthall House, a Leicestershire county council home, is threatened with closure as a direct result of this Government's policy of introducing what they ludicrously call "best practice". Several people will be thrown out of the home during the next few months if the policy is allowed to stick.

Simon Burns: My hon. and learned Friend describes a problem that is sadly all too well known throughout this country, as more and more homes are being closed and beds lost because of the actions of this Government.

Joan Humble: rose—

Simon Burns: I will just make the point about the figures, and then I will move on to the hon. Lady.
	Some of those beds have been lost in the independent sector, and the figure also includes 26,000 lost in the public sector: 13,500 from local authorities and 12,500 from long-stay NHS provision.

Joan Humble: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I remind him that he supported the implementation of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 under the previous Conservative Government, who said that too many people were in residential care and would be better supported in their own homes. Is he now saying that they got it wrong?

Simon Burns: No, I am not. What I am saying is that this Government are hitting those people with a double whammy: they are closing the homes, the beds are being lost and the amount of domiciliary care provided has declined by 12 per cent. The hon. Ladies on the Labour Back Benches nod their heads in chorus, but they do not listen. The number of people getting domiciliary care has fallen since 1997. The number of hours that they are receiving has risen, but the total number of people who are getting the care has been cut.
	To return to the figures, the Government keep claiming that the overall number of beds lost is 19,000, but in the true spin mode to which we are all accustomed, they seek to massage bad news and have used a different and highly disingenuous basis for calculating those figures. To try to massage that bad news, they have used a different period and a different basis for their calculations. Their figures are based solely on the independent care homes sector and exclude the beds lost from local authority and NHS provision. Remarkably, they totally exclude any figures for 2001. As if that were not enough, they use a late year base of November-December for their figures, rather than the year ending in March-April.
	For the NHS, the closures are having serious consequences on delayed discharges from hospitals. The total number of delayed discharges is still above the 5,000 level, and a growing minority of delayed discharge patients are staying longer in hospital, with more than 36 per cent. staying for more than 28 days. The knock-on effect is that the number of cancelled operations is rising, as it has done each year since this Government came to power. More worryingly, the rate for readmission within 28 days of discharge is rising and is especially high for over-75s. It is also worrying that a number of trust chief executives are again beginning to see rising pressures in terms of delayed discharge. They are all fearful that further anticipated home closures will significantly and adversely affect their ability to reduce the numbers in the next 18 months.

Ronnie Campbell: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Burns: No.
	Another reason for the problems facing care homes is fee levels. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted the fact that the average cost per week for nursing care of older people in a home is £459, and that the cost for residential care is £353. Those costs are about £75 to £85 higher than the average fees paid by local authorities. In addition, there is the looming problem of the estimated £300 million increase in national insurance contributions from next April, which will be a crippling blow to the sector.

Ronnie Campbell: The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for a very long time, but if I were a Conservative supporter, I would still be wondering which way to vote; I would want to know what he was going to do about the problem.

Simon Burns: The hon. Gentleman must think the House is stupid if he expects us to believe that he is still thinking about how to vote. We all know that, like every other clone in the Labour party, he will be voting with the party tonight, in defiance of what is going on in this country.
	Ironically, it is estimated that local authorities are paying fees to place residents in their own homes that are up to 40 per cent. higher than they pay in the independent sector. That is unfair, it is a short-term catastrophe and it is one of the major contributing factors to the closure of care homes, and especially the small and medium-sized ones.

Hilton Dawson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Burns: No.
	A significant number of self-funding residents are now in effect subsidising local authority-placed residents. The Government's introduction of free nursing care is doing very little to help to reduce the problems that were identified before that happened.

Tom Harris: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Burns: No; I need to make progress.
	Another major factor in home closure has been the mass of regulations imposed on care homes and the unsatisfactory manner in which they are being implemented, despite the promise of a carrot rather than stick approach. The Prime Minister seems rather confused about the implementation of the new care standards. My hon. Friends will remember that, last Wednesday in Prime Minister's questions, he told my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that the care standards regulations
	"do not come into effect until 2007."—[Official Report, 3 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 221.]
	He was quite dogmatic about that—and he is equally wrong. Let me explain to the House what his Government are doing.
	There are 38 minimum standards covering seven topics and comprising 246 individual rules. Two provisions will operate from 2004 and four provisions will operate from 2007, but what the Prime Minister does not seem to understand is that 240 provisions operated from 1 April 2002. The Prime Minister's ignorance typifies how out of touch his Government are on this sensitive subject.
	Of course, everyone supports the principle of raising standards and the quality of care but it must be done in a sympathetic, sensible and sensitive way.

Angela Browning: I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised the answer that the Prime Minister gave last week. The figures that my hon. Friend has just given us were confirmed to me this morning by the House of Commons Library. Given all the regulations that they have had to implement from 1 April this year, with the more expensive ones to come, and the fact that housing and the property market are at a high, is it not the case that many owners are selling up in order to get out and to realise their capital before there is even more of the same to come?

Simon Burns: Sadly, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the major problems facing the care homes sector is what is going on as a result of the Government's policies and their lack of preparedness to take action to rectify the problem.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Simon Burns: No, I will not give way. I am going to make progress.
	Some of the requirements in respect of room sizes and other structural changes are unnecessarily over- prescriptive and ludicrous. [Hon. Members: "Name them."] If hon. Members listen, I will. For example, one large care home provider with more than 200 homes told me that the standards require doors in the homes to be a minimum of 80 cm wide, but the doors in the homes happen to be 78 cm wide and it will cost £2.5 million to meet the required standards.
	A care home owner in East Sussex who has been running her home for 18 years told me:
	"The inspector said the rooms were the wrong size and the social needs of the residents were not being met because not every resident was taken out every day."
	Ironically, many of the residents chose their own rooms as they were happy with their size and
	"preferred a smaller and more cosy room to a large vacuous one."
	[Interruption.] Labour Members laugh, but that is what the residents of care homes want. All Labour Members can do is laugh at their wishes.
	The owner was left in tears by the inspectors. She said that she was left feeling
	"undermined, undervalued and demoralised by them".
	Her home now has to close because she cannot afford to meet the minimum room size standards. She told the inspectors that the next time they visited she would be working in Tesco's.
	A home owner in North Tyneside told me that his family had run their home for 31 years and had been highly regarded for providing high-quality care. Now they are having to close, with the loss of 21 beds, because they cannot run the home on the occupancy levels that the new standards will mean.
	A home in Kent for elderly people with learning disabilities, which has 32 beds, will be closing in August because of the upgrading requirements in the care standards regulations. One resident has been there for 35 years. The uncertainty and confusion of residents at having to leave their home is causing shock and deep distress. The manager has said that 95 per cent. of those residents have no family, relatives or friends, and regard the staff as their family. Their lives and security will be destroyed.

Stephen McCabe: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Simon Burns: No, I will not.
	Another home owner, in Somerset, said of the Government's over-regulation:
	"It's not about care anymore—it's about bureaucracy. They don't care! It broke my heart to close my home and move my residents out."
	Why did she have to move them out? Because she was required to install a lift to accommodate five people, even though she only had a seven-bed home. She lamented to me:
	"One elderly lady phones me all the time saying how unhappy she is and misses the home. She tells me 'this isn't my home.'"
	That quote sums up the deeply distressing impact the Government's policy is having on so many elderly vulnerable people.
	Even the constituency of the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Redditch, is affected. She may be familiar with the Stonebridge nursing home, with 41 beds. The Minister nods; she is clearly familiar with it. I wonder how good her memory is.

Jacqui Smith: The home has applied for planning permission.

Simon Burns: The Minister is very good at memorising things, so I hope that she remembers what I am about to tell her.
	When the owner, Mrs. Jean Jones, went to see her then Labour prospective parliamentary candidate, Jacqui Smith, in 1997, she was assured—and I quote from what Jacqui Smith said at the time—
	"Under a Labour Government, bureaucracy would decrease".
	Mrs. Jones notes with some dismay that since 1997 the opposite has happened. The home even had to employ an extra member of staff to deal with questionnaires and forms from the National Care Standards Commission and the inspectors. As the Minister said, the home has applied for planning permission. Of course it has—to comply with the care standards and to make the necessary changes. It will cost the owner £350,000 to do so.
	The distress and the disruption to vulnerable people's lives caused by the impact of these regulations is totally unacceptable and in many cases totally unnecessary. There is no point in Ministers chanting the mantra that the inspection teams have been instructed to work in a sympathetic and sensitive way, because in the real world—not in the ivory tower of the Department of Health—that is not happening. Too many elderly, frail and confused residents are seeing their homes and security destroyed in an act of bureaucratic vandalism. No one would disagree with the need to raise standards where that is necessary or to enhance the quality of life of residents, but Ministers cannot and must not hide behind that to allow elderly people's lives to be ruined and destroyed in the name of heavy-handed bureaucracy.
	Quality care is not provided by enforcing arbitrary bureaucracy. Quality care is not provided by officious inspections. Quality care is not provided by pretending that there is not a crisis. There is a crisis in care—a crisis for the elderly, a crisis for the defenceless, a crisis for the frail and a crisis for the vulnerable. They deserve better, but the Government are failing them. It is time for the Government to listen, to take note and to act now.

Jacqui Smith: I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	'welcomes the Government's strategy for modernising social care services through unprecedented real terms increases in resources; condemns the Opposition for opposing this investment; welcomes the improved joint working between the NHS, social services, and the independent care sectors which has seen a reduction in levels of delayed discharges of over 1,000 since September 2001; recognises Government action to provide real choice for older people in long term care and to place a greater emphasis on users and patients in the design and delivery of services; notes the confusion, inconsistency and lack of independence in previous registration and inspection regimes and welcomes the Government's national framework for standards and quality; further notes that the extra funding is enabling local councils to increase fees paid to care homes and that providers are continuing to open new homes; and recognises that the number of people receiving intensive home care support is increasing, enabling more people to live independently at home for longer.'.
	Improving services for older people is one of the Government's highest priorities. For that reason, I welcome this debate, which provides an opportunity to discuss how we deliver the right type of care and support for older people at the right time and in the right setting, whether that setting be a care home, sheltered accommodation or assisted living within a person's own home. Ensuring choice and good quality care for vulnerable people is about more than care homes.
	I also welcome today's debate as I can share with the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) my respect and praise for those who work in all our care settings for the contribution that they make to vulnerable people. I will focus on care homes, not least to counter some of the disinformation and scaremongering that have characterised the hon. Gentleman's contribution. The old and vulnerable people who depend on our care system deserve more than that.

Michael Jack: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way at this early stage. During this debate, she will have heard interventions from the hon. Members for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble) and for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), and she will be aware of the concern that the hon. Members for Preston (Mr. Hendrick) and for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and I have about Lancashire county council's proposals to close 35 of its 43 care homes. The Minister said that she would keep in close touch with the county council and monitor that situation. Will she now tell us precisely what she has done, and what comfort she can bring to the elderly people of Lancashire with regard to the actions of this Labour-controlled council?

Jacqui Smith: The right hon. Gentleman is right—my hon. Friends have taken a close interest in care homes in Lancashire. I have, as I said I would, asked the social services inspectorate to keep a close eye on the matter, and the inspectorate has worked with the local authority to secure a better relationship between the independent care sector and the local authority than there had previously been, as was rightly argued for by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson).
	Some people will continue to need and choose residential and nursing care. We need to continue to build a system that translates the needs and choices of older people into the commissioning of a suitable range of both residential and other options for long-term care. This approach puts older people and their choices at the centre of planning. Unfortunately, our long-term care has not always been planned in that way.

Jackie Lawrence: May I draw to my hon. Friend's attention a survey that Age Concern Cymru has just given to me, which illustrates that 40 per cent. of people in residential care suffer from clinical depression? Will she bear in mind, when she talks about choices, what people really want is to be supported in their homes?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend makes an important point about the choice and the independence that we need to provide for older people, and I shall explore that subject later.
	As I was saying, we have not, unfortunately, always planned our long-term care by putting older people's needs at the centre. There was a huge expansion in the number of care homes throughout the 1980s, when uncapped budgets from the then Department of Health and Social Security were available for publicly funded people entering residential care. Entry to a care home was not based on need or user choice, but was too often driven by the interests of providers and, more significantly, by Government dogma. Profits were high but the standard of care was too often too low. Indeed, it has already been pointed out that it was the Conservatives—then in power—who, having created this unplanned and uncontrolled growth, sought severely to limit it. As I recall, the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 was introduced as much to stem this flow of money as it was to improve the lot of those using public services.

Hugo Swire: If it is true, as the Minister says, that there was an explosion in the number of homes in the 1980s—and, therefore, an explosion in the amount of money following those homes—will she take the time to tell that to her colleague the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), who made his first ministerial visit to the west country the other day? When he was confronted with the problems of Devon care homes closing, he replied that that was due to 18 years of chronic underfunding.

Jacqui Smith: My point—and that of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary—is that decisions were made on the basis of funding streams; they were not made on the basis of investment in assessment and real care for older people, which is what this Government have done.
	Fuelled by huge expansion in the 1980s, the care home market peaked in 1996, when there were too many beds to be sustainable in the long term. Indeed, a recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, written by Mr. William Laing of the independent care consultants Laing and Buisson, states that
	"a decline in care home capacity was to be expected—and, indeed, broadly welcomed."

Gregory Barker: Does the Minister therefore welcome the closure of seven care homes in my constituency in the last 12 months, and the concomitant 13 per cent. bed blocking in the East Sussex NHS Hospital trust, which has resulted in 131 beds being blocked because places cannot be found in the community?

Jacqui Smith: I was quoting the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, rather than myself. I was, however, going to go on to say that I recognise the concerns that come with managing this change in the care home market. As hon. Members have heard me say on numerous occasions, there has been a small loss of care home beds since 1997—[Interruption.] Some Conservative Members continue—because they lack the sophistication of the hon. Member for West Chelmsford—to chant about 50,000 care beds being lost.

Patrick McLoughlin: rose—

Jacqui Smith: I will give way in a moment.
	Although 50,000 beds were deregistered, more than 31,000 beds entered the care home market during the same period, making a loss of just 19,000. That is just 4 per cent. of the stock, which means that there is roughly the same number of care homes today as there was in 1997.

Patrick McLoughlin: If the Minister regards the loss of some 50,000 beds as "small", will she tell us what she regards as large?

Jacqui Smith: If the hon. Gentleman had been a little less excited about jumping up, he would have heard me say that there had not been a loss of 50,000 care beds, but a net loss of 19,000. I also said that I was concerned about that. These are the facts—not according to the Department of Health, but according to Laing and Buisson, which Conservative Members are so keen on quoting.
	Conservative Members have proved to me today how difficult it is to get the message over to the Opposition. I have outlined these figures to the hon. Member for West Chelmsford across the Dispatch Box on numerous occasions, and I went through them with him step by step at the Select Committee on Health. Either Conservative Members are very slow learners, or they have decided not to let the facts get in the way of a political campaign, which is a pretty cheap way of treating the older and vulnerable people who need us to have an informed debate and put forward practical suggestions for improvement.

Angela Browning: Does the Minister accept that in rural areas such as my constituency in Devon, geographical spread and availability are important to choice? In many of my larger villages, there is only one residential home. If that home closes, the people in that local community will have to live much further away from their friends and relatives. We are going to end up with Trust House Forte-style care homes with colour co-ordinated bedrooms in urban areas—[Interruption.] It is happening now, and people in rural areas have no choice but to be divorced from their local communities.

Jacqui Smith: I understand the hon. Lady's concerns about care homes in rural areas. As I was about to say, we need to ensure that the fees paid to them reflect their operating costs. I shall come to fees in a moment; I am looking forward to doing so.

Kali Mountford: On the point made by Conservative Members about delayed discharge, is it not time that we looked at new ways of dealing with that issue? The Moorlands Grange home in Netherton, which my hon. Friend the Minister visited recently, is now an assessment centre. People stay there for a limited period, often a period of their own choosing, while they decide for themselves whether they want to go into a care home or return home with some support. Would that not be a better way of dealing with this problem?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend is right, and I enjoyed my visit to her constituency. That kind of practical suggestion and positive forward thinking will get us so much further than a slanging match about statistics. Of course, any closures that result in people having to move are worrying for those people and their families. I understand that at first hand, not least as a result of a campaign that I ran, before being elected to Parliament in 1997, to prevent the Conservative-controlled Worcestershire county council from closing a home in my constituency. We won that battle, and I was delighted to open the upgraded home just a few weeks ago.
	If we are to maintain the necessary care home capacity and provide new services, of course we will need investment. Fees must reflect the costs of residential and nursing care and the improvements that we want.

Stephen McCabe: Issues other than fees may arise in relation to the introduction of new standards in various parts of the country. Tonight's tragedy, however, is that given the tone set by the uninterrupted rant from the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns), the House has lost any opportunity to recognise the existence of geographical differences—differences relating to fees, but also to how zealously standards are interpreted. There is room for debate about such matters, but that earlier rant has obscured it.

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend is right. I was about to deal with the subject of fees.

John Butterfill: Will the Minister give way?

Jacqui Smith: No.
	This is tricky territory for Conservative Members. The fees paid by local authorities depend on how much they receive. The amount has risen by more than 3 per cent. a year in real terms since 1997; it rose by only 0.1 per cent. a year under the Conservatives. Moreover, we recognised the concerns of local government last year—

John Butterfill: Will the Minister give way?

Jacqui Smith: No. I have already been far more generous than the hon. Member for West Chelmsford, and I want to make some progress.
	As I was saying, we recognised the concerns of local government last year. Over that year and this, we have provided £300 million to help stabilise the care market and cut the number of delayed discharges. I have been asked where the money went. More than 50 per cent. of what councils received was spent on care homes. It is because of those additional funds that local councils have been implementing fee increases. According to independent care consultants, the vast majority of councils recently agreed to fee increases in excess of 3 per cent., and some have agreed to much bigger increases. A third of them have increased fees by more than 10 per cent.

Michael Jabez Foster: The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) spoke of problems in East Sussex. My hon. Friend may be interested to learn that while her generosity and that of her colleagues was welcomed by those in East Sussex who received an extra £1.2 million, the Tory county council cut its social services budget by £4 million, thus taking more out than the Government put in.

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend has ably illustrated the Conservatives' attitude to investment. I spoke of difficult territory; even more difficult for them to accept is the fact that we are committing resources in the long term. I said that funds for social services were rising by 3 per cent. over inflation each year. As the Chancellor announced in the Budget, from next April we will double that, delivering an average real-terms increase of 6 per cent. a year from 2003–4 to 2005–6. That is very good news for those who need the support of care services—and, as reaction to the Budget has shown, there is overwhelming public support for the extra investment. It is a pity that the Conservatives do not feel the same; it is a pity that they voted against that investment on 1 May. I hope that those who call for higher fees for care homes tonight will also tell us which way they voted on the provision of the necessary funds.

Simon Thomas: I have considerable sympathy with the Minister's argument, and I support the Government's aim of improving care home standards. Let me point out, however, that in forthcoming years not private homes but local authority homes will find it most difficult to meet those standards because, for reasons that the Minister has given, they have suffered from underinvestment for many years.
	Will the Minister say something about the Welsh Assembly's call for the Government to make personal care freely available in Wales?

Jacqui Smith: I shall deal with the issue of care standards later but, as the hon. Gentleman says, investment is important.
	I think that we have made our position clear. We think it important to ensure that there is free nursing care, but also to provide new services by means of the extra investment we are making. Decisions being made in Wales are of course a matter for Wales, and I know the hon. Gentleman takes a close interest in them.
	Money is important, but so is better commissioning of care for older people. The ad hoc and distorted relationships of the past are being replaced by partnership at local level between health organisations, social services organisations and the independent and voluntary sector. We have established a new, more positive partnership between the statutory and the independent social, health care and housing sectors at national level. That is being built on locally as authorities implement our agreement, published as "Building Capacity and Partnership in Care".
	We need a whole systems approach. The care home sector does not exist in isolation from the overall health and care economy and the reforms that are happening elsewhere. Councils, care home providers and others need to get round the table, listen to what older people say they want in the future and work together to commission and provide it.
	Once again, we are focusing on the issue of standards for care homes. Standards in that sector are not new. The system of standards introduced by the present Government replaced a system under which care homes were regulated by about 250 local authorities and health authorities, each applying its own standards. The old regulatory system had been criticised for many years for lacking independence, consistency and coherence. Many people, not least members of care home provider organisations, have been calling for national standards for some time. We responded to those calls: we outlined our proposals in the White Paper "Modernising Social Services", we consulted widely and we debated the proposals at length in Parliament. The Conservative party supported them.
	I have spoken to care home owners who are worried about meeting some of the standards. We have already acted on that and will continue to listen. The more challenging environmental standards will not be implemented until 2007 and providers will be given realistic timetables to meet them.

David Borrow: I am sure that my hon. Friend heard the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) criticise the care standards that have been introduced. The hon. Gentleman did not, however, list the standards that he would not implement were he in a position to do so. Has my hon. Friend managed to secure such a list from him, and has she been able to assess the effect on care for the elderly if those standards were not implemented?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend makes an important point, to which I shall return shortly.
	In January I issued instructions to the National Care Standards Commission to ensure that inspectors consider whether care homes could fulfil the needs of service users without making environmental changes—for instance, to room sizes, lifts, baths and shared rooms—to meet the standards. I made it clear that failure to meet them should be used as a reason to deregister a home only when services posed a danger to vulnerable people. We believe that people's safety and well-being is paramount and the new standards will help to ensure that poor quality care is a thing of the past.
	It is true that only one of the seven categories of standard is environmental. I have mentioned our common-sense approach, but I make no apology for the expectation that those who care for our most vulnerable people should have some training; that those going into homes should have information about terms and conditions and a plan of care; that they should be given regular nutritious meals; and that medicine should be controlled and supervised. If Conservative Members cannot support those standards, I hope that they will explain why to the families of vulnerable people in their constituencies.

Brian Cotter: May I make a constructive point? It is being said in my area that inspection is being rigorously enforced in some parts of the country, but not in others. Will the Minister pay serious attention to that? It seems that in some regions standards to which the Minister committed herself are being implemented sensibly, while in others, such as mine, they are being implemented too zealously.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman makes a sensible point. Of course, we need to continue to work with the National Care Standards Commission to ensure consistency in the way in which inspectors operate.
	The emphasis in the standards will be on ensuring people's safety. Of course, there is a balance to be struck. Our aim is to set standards at a level that will improve the quality of life for people whose home is a care home. We will continue to watch developments carefully and—as we have done to date—we will not hesitate to act if we become convinced that the balance is wrong.

Hugo Swire: Will the Minister give way?

Jacqui Smith: No, it is time for me to make some progress.
	Long-term care is not just about care homes; increasingly, older people want to be able to choose to stay at home. We are giving them that independence through the development of alternatives such as extra care housing and the provision of more intensive home care packages to keep people in their own homes for longer. Since 1998, the number of intensive home care packages—people supported in their homes, in many cases instead of through residential care—has increased by nearly 16,000. Intermediate care services are making a difference to the independence of, and choices available to, older people. "Hospital at home" teams can give antibiotics to older people with chest infections in their own homes, rather than their having to be admitted to hospital. The other day, I met a lady who thought that she would have to go into a home following a hip replacement, but instead she was receiving intensive rehabilitation in an intermediate care centre that was developed within a care home. She was already making plans to go back to her flat. The plans for intermediate care that are spelt out in the NHS plan are becoming a reality for thousands of people.
	New services and investment are achieving results. The issue of delayed discharges was raised, and I am pleased to announce that significant progress has been made in respect of the serious problems that the Tory Government left us. The rate of delayed discharges for patients aged over 75 stood at 13 per cent. in March 1997. In other words, nearly 7,000 older people were stuck in hospital when they should have been discharged. By March 2002, that figure had fallen to 9.4 per cent.—nearly 2,300 fewer. With investment and reform, we are ensuring that more vulnerable people get the right care in the right place, and at the right time.
	This evening, we have been treated to the latest incarnation of compassionate conservatism. That is quite a transformation for the hon. Member for West Chelmsford, given his record in government. However, he has also allowed us to see what compassionate conservatism really means. It can be summed up in three easy sentences: "We're sorry that there are social problems and challenges for our public services. We're really sorry that we were responsible for causing them. Sorry, but we're not going to do anything to put them right."
	What the people who depend on our care services really need is not Conservative crocodile tears, but a Labour Government who are providing more investment, higher standards, more services, more choice, more independence and more hope for the most vulnerable people in our society. I commend the amendment to the House.
	7.53 pm

Paul Burstow: I want to begin by referring to some of the evidence—perhaps the Minister did not wish to hear it this evening—on the crisis in the care system. The reality is that the problems from which care homes, home care and the care system in general are suffering have been well documented not just by political parties in this House but by organisations such as Help the Aged. In particular, I want to mention some of the evidence that has been drawn to the Minister's attention time and again by the fair rate for care campaign. There is overwhelming evidence that the care system—not just the care home sector but the home care sector—is reaching a critical point. Indeed, as the Minister herself pointed out, since the care home market peaked in 1996, the number of care home beds has declined. The Prime Minister said during last week's Question Time that we have lost 19,000 beds, but I suspect that, on the evidence from Laing and Buisson, the figure is higher. I shall not get into the semantics of whose figures are most accurate.
	The fact is that registrations have plummeted and deregistrations have rocketed in the past five years, which is why we have a serious problem with capacity across the sector. Having listened to today's exchanges across the Dispatch Box and the Minister's response to the Conservative Opposition motion, my feeling is that this remains an issue on which the Government are being remarkably complacent. It is almost as if the Government want a loss of capacity in the care home sector. Ministers cannot be unaware of the concerns that give rise to this debate. Through numerous Adjournment debates in the past two years, Members on both sides of the House have sought to bring to the Government's attention their concerns about the loss of capacity, the closure of care homes and the knock-on effect on the wider local health and social care economy.
	The Minister let the cat out of the bag when she spoke in an Adjournment debate last week. She said that various parts of the country
	"experienced a significant, but unplanned and unmanaged, expansion in the independent care home sector as a result of the use of an uncapped Department of Social Security budget throughout the 1980s."—[Official Report, 4 July 2002; Vol. 388, c. 508.]
	Indeed, she has restated the point today. That expansion was certainly unplanned and unmanaged, but could not those terms be applied to what is happening now? To a considerable degree, the loss of capacity in the care home sector was completely unforeseen by the Department of Health.

Hilton Dawson: Has the hon. Gentleman seen a recent report by the King's Fund, entitled "Partnerships under pressure", which acknowledges that partnerships are developing the whole systems approaches that the Conservatives failed to recognise at all? Crucial ways of working together to integrate health and social care are beginning to be developed. Is that not the way forward for this sector?

Paul Burstow: I agree that whole systems are undoubtedly the way forward, and I welcome the work being done to that end by the Local Government Association and the NHS Confederation. However, I regret the fact that the hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench colleagues appear to be pursuing individual quick-fix gimmicks such as the introduction of fines for local authorities that fail to facilitate early discharge from hospital. Such a provision misses the point entirely, and simply treats the symptoms rather than the underlying causes.

John Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that, in Royal Bournemouth hospital, for example, at any given time, an entire ward—some 30 or 40 beds—is blocked by this problem? Although we are anxious to have home care as well, that cannot be achieved because this Government have cut the social services budget in Bournemouth—a budget that was designed for this purpose—by £3 million every year since coming to power in 1997. How are we expected to stop bed blocking in the light of such cuts?

Paul Burstow: The Local Government Association has made a detailed analysis of the implications of the settlement announced in the Budget, about which we will probably get more details in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review. The 6 per cent. real-terms growth—we will have to wait and see how much of that will be passed on to council tax payers, rather than being picked up directly through the Exchequer—will not lead to anything like the improvements that Ministers claim. The reality is that the Government have considerably underestimated the cost of providing care, and I shall discuss in due course the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's report on that subject.
	The hon. Gentleman is right: the shortage in social services resources is passed on to the care home sector and to other care providers. Indeed, that is an important reason for the loss of capacity across several different care sector providers. That unsustainable squeeze in fees over at least the last seven years—it predates this Government—has been a serious cause of the reduction in capacity.
	The Minister was right to identify the introduction of the NHS community care legislation in the early 1990s as one of the triggers for the downward pressure by local authorities. The Conservative Government recognised that they had set in train a runaway budget funded through the Department of Social Security—as it then was—and they wanted someone to cap it. Central Government do not like to take responsibility for capping expenditure, so they turned to local authorities to do the dirty work for them. Over the past seven to 10 years, local authorities have been effective at their job, and that is why we see the current problems in the care home sector and well beyond.

Nigel Waterson: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that Liberal Democrat-run East Sussex was, year after year, bottom of the national league tables for how much it paid the private sector, while it squandered millions of pounds on paying hundreds of pounds more a week for beds in its own homes?

Paul Burstow: I hope that, on this occasion, the hon. Gentleman will stay to make his own speech, which he did not when he made that point in an intervention on my speech in January, when we initiated the debate. The answer is the same as it was to the remarks of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill). Social services were underfunded by the Conservative Government for far too many years. It is hardly surprising that the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson) can make that point. The reality is that since the Conservatives returned to power in East Sussex, matters have not significantly improved.
	In January, I published evidence of the squeeze in fees. In the charitable care home sector, charities are having to make payments to top up local authority fees to provide decent care. That costs the charitable sector £185 million a year to provide decent pay and conditions for staff and decent quality care for care home residents. A recent letter from a charitable care home provider goes to the heart of the problem and states:
	"The demand for nursing and residential care remains high—we don't have any vacancies in our London homes but at a rate of as low as £247 a week we cannot afford to continue. A week's stay in a Travel Lodge in London without any meals or service from staff will cost you in excess of £400, what does this say about how the Government value the care of older people in our society?"
	That letter was sent to the Minister in May and is further evidence that the sector is underfunded and undervalued. We are trying to get care for the elderly on the cheap.
	Standards are an important part of the equation and the Liberal Democrats were committed to improving them during the passage of the care standards legislation. Indeed, some research into the quality of life in residential and nursing homes gives serious cause for concern. A report last year by the British Medical Journal found that in a six-hour daytime period, in several care homes in both the public and private sectors, residents spent half their time asleep, socially withdrawn or not actively engaged. Only 50 minutes were spent talking or communicating, and fewer than 12 minutes were spent in everyday constructive activities. We must all be concerned that that is the quality of life that far too many suffer in care homes.
	Last month, Rowntree published a report by the leading market analyst, William Laing, which found a £1 billion black hole in the funding of the care home sector. The Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), prayed that report in aid but did not say whether she supported the central thrust of its argument that the sector is under-resourced. Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), can say whether the Government will seriously consider the model for costing care in care homes set out in the report, discuss it with the Local Government Association and representatives of the care home sector and start applying it. In that way, we might bridge the gap between what the sector says and what the Government say is needed to fund the sector properly.
	Laing and Buisson also produced a local report for Birmingham city council, and I am sure that the Minister will be aware of it. In May, Councillor Susanna McCorry, the Birmingham cabinet member for social services and health, wrote to the Minister saying:
	"63 care homes have closed in Birmingham and many more face an uncertain future in the current climate. The City Council does not have the funds to be able to support the sector to the degree that it requires in order to bring about stability. There is a potential crisis looming for Birmingham unless there is some immediate financial support forthcoming from the Government. In doing so, I firmly believe that this will boost the confidence of the sector and the City Council to work together to achieve the longer term goals that we have set ourselves."
	That was in May.
	Just last week, I received an e-mail from the Birmingham care consortium that said that more than half the care homes in the city have now declined the contract from the city council. As a consequence, many homes will turn away local authority-funded placements, exacerbating the problems of bed blocking in the city. That is one consequence of the underfunding of the system.
	Low pay and morale and poor staff retention are also serious problems. Many people get better paid stacking shelves in Tesco or working in a local IKEA. Providing care is a demanding and stressful job and we are rightly talking about requiring that more staff are trained, with 50 per cent. trained to national vocational qualification level 2 by 2005. But what happens when better trained staff work in a low-paid environment? They take their skills elsewhere, to the NHS or another public sector employer. There is no money in the system to recognise that level of training in the care home sector. What do the Government propose to do about that?
	The standards have been the final straw for many care home owners. That is not because they are wrong in principle, or indeed in many aspects of their practice—although my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Brian Cotter) was right when he asked the Minister about the lack of consistency in the interpretation of standards by inspectors across the country. It would be a serious weakness in the system if we had national arrangements for regulating and inspecting care, only to find that individual inspectors still had far too much latitude in interpreting them on the ground.
	The Minister talked about the softly, softly approach that the Government announced at the beginning of the year to try to reassure the care home sector. The later implementation of many of the physical standards is certainly welcome, but removing the need to change room sizes until 2007 does not address the problem that care home owners face when they see their bank managers to secure the loan to pay for the changes. It does not alter the fact that care home owners are asking for loans to remodel their homes to reduce the number of beds and therefore to receive less income. Bank managers will laugh in their faces and certainly will not provide the resources to facilitate the changes.

Hilton Dawson: rose—

Paul Burstow: I have already taken one intervention from the hon. Gentleman, so I hope that he will forgive me if I do not take another.
	Another problem that is causing great anxiety is the massive backlog at the Criminal Records Bureau. Any new member of staff at a care home has to be checked before they can start working. We have been told that that requirement has been put back to 1 August, but what will happen on 2 August to the care home manager or owner who has not been able to have the checks done? Will they go to prison? Will they have to close the home because they do not have the staff to keep it running? What will happen to the people in the home if it has to be shut down temporarily? How will that difficulty be overcome? Many care home owners want to know the answers and would welcome some detail from the Minister tonight.
	When I surveyed care homes earlier this year, it is no wonder that I found that seven out of 10 were considering refusing to take on local authority-funded placements and more than half had seriously considered closing their doors and going out of business in the past year. As the cabinet member from Birmingham told the Minister, confidence in the sector has collapsed. It is not only the poor quality homes that are closing but the homes that have invested in making changes to improve the quality of their facilities. They now have to pay more in interest charges to repay their debts and are struggling the most.
	The crisis is widening and deepening because of the crisis that is also developing in the home care sector where there are similar financial and staffing strains. Over the past few years, there has been a significant change in who receives home care. To manage their limited resources, social services departments have tightened their eligibility criteria year after year so that they exclude all but the most frail and desperately dependent people from staying in their homes.
	The Minister regularly trots out the fact that there are now more high dependency packages, but glosses over the fact that in the past five years, care packages have ceased for 109,900 people or they no longer receive care at home. That is a 22 per cent. reduction. What has happened to those people? Have they miraculously become independent? Do they miraculously no longer need any services? Or is it simply that their local authority has defined them out of eligibility for care? That is what the Government really mean by choice; it is no choice for people who do not quite qualify because their social services department cannot quite afford to provide them with the care that they need.
	What has struck me most in all the debates on this issue is that Ministers largely ignored the problem until it started to hit the national health service. When the statistics on delayed hospital discharge began to rise, Ministers became concerned and wanted to do something about it. The announcement last autumn about extra cash was not really to deal with stabilising the sector but to do withtackling the Government's concern about the headline delayed discharge figure. It is nothing to do with choice—it is all about Government targets. The Government are concerned only about what they are directly responsible for and quite happy to leave social services to clear up the mess in relation to things that are not their responsibility.
	Delayed discharges are just a symptom—the result of the pressure on the care system as a whole. The Minister says that we need a whole system approach, but it is not happening.
	In the past two years, we have seen an 18 per cent. rise in emergency readmissions. People are being discharged prematurely because care home packages are no longer available for them. They turn up in accident and emergency departments, needing more care and support.
	The Government have failed to take a whole system approach, and the Wanless report, which was published on the day of the Budget, said as much. I hope that in his reply, the Under-Secretary will say that funding is at the root of the problem. Higher standards are not cost free. We were kidded when the regulatory impact assessment to the Care Standards Bill implied that everything could be done on a cost-neutral basis. It was nonsense then, and it is demonstrable nonsense now.

Andrew Turner: Would it surprise the hon. Gentleman to know that the Minister of State admitted last week—only after a question that I tabled in March this year—that the regulatory impact assessment, which she signed off in December last year, was inaccurate in one very substantial measure?

Jacqui Smith: In the annexe.

Andrew Turner: That was part of the assessment, as far as I can tell. The estimated cost was given in the annexe as £52,000 per establishment, whereas in fact it was £52,000 per room.

Paul Burstow: The hon. Gentleman highlights one of the errors in the regulations relating to disabled people in care homes. The regulations to which I am referring concern care homes for the elderly. However, he is right, and the figures had to be withdrawn as a result of that error. They caused anxiety across the sector when they were published because they did not add up. They did not add up when the Care Standards Act 2000 was implemented and the regulatory impact assessment was published. The figures were partial and did not give a true picture of what would happen after the Bill was implemented.
	We could continue to argue how much extra the social services sector does or does not need. The Government say that it is 6 per cent., while the SPAIN—social policy ageing information network—group and others argue for more.
	The Government deserve credit for the Wanless report, which studied and analysed the case for extra investment in the health system. We supported the recommendations with our votes when the legislation went through. We believe that there needs to be a Wanless report for social care. Indeed, the Wanless report said time and again that there was a need for such an analysis, but it was not within its brief.

Hilton Dawson: Liberal Democrat Members believe that there needs to be such a Wanless report; Wanless himself says so in the report.

Paul Burstow: I think that that was what I just said, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman endorses it. I hope that, despite the fact that Ministers have so far rejected that request, they will consider it. What do they have to hide? Why would they be concerned about having a detailed independent assessment of what is needed to provide quality social care?

John Pugh: I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that in 1999 the Government changed the assessment of elderly people in the population from total elderly population to elderly population living in private accommodation. That put undue pressure on authorities with high numbers of residential homes and will continue to do so. While standard spending assessments are under review by the Government, is there not a case for them to take that factor on board?

Paul Burstow: My hon. Friend makes an important point. My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) raised a point of order earlier today in which he said that a consultation document was published today which deals with some of these issues. However, only four copies were lodged in the Library and there was a long queue at the photocopier so that Members could study it properly.
	I hope that the Minister will tell us why the Government have set their face against having a detailed independent assessment of the true resource needs to provide social care at the level that we expect.
	In the meantime, we believe that we need to strike a different balance in the resources going into the health system. Unless we inject additional resources into home care and care homes, difficulties with delayed discharges and emergency readmission will continue.

David Drew: I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman's emphasis on funding. However, there is also a systematic failure that I have not heard mentioned in the debate so far—the belief that the private sector alone can pick up the problems of the care sector. We need to look at other forms of organisation, principally mutual organisations, which are growing around the country. That must be emphasised as a solution at the centre of the situation rather than at the margins.

Paul Burstow: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about considering how to develop new models for the provision of care, such as co-operative and mutual organisations. We want to explore this area, which is an interesting way to ensure that there is a wider choice in the future.
	The Minister says that the seeds of today's crisis were planted with the unplanned, unmanaged expansion in the 1980s. However, Ministers today are presiding over yet another unplanned, unmanaged situation, this time a collapse. If they fail to address the concerns that have been brought to the House's attention tonight and in many previous Adjournment debates, they will, by their complacency and denial of the facts, show that they are more interested in facilitating the loss of capacity through stealth in this sector and much more concerned about the headline delayed discharge figures than they are about choice, care and the dignity of people in old age.

Howard Stoate: It gives me great pleasure to be called tonight, because I believe that I am the only Member of the House who carries on any medical practice. It always pleases me greatly to be able to enter into a debate about which I hope I know a certain amount.
	How elderly people are looked after is of great importance to doctors. Many of my patients end up in the nursing or care home sector sooner or later, and it is important to me to know that they are being looked after properly. Right hon. and hon. Members may be pleased to know that a number of elderly residents who have moved off my list into care homes still write to me once a year to let me know how they are getting on. It has probably more to do with letting me know that no one has managed to kill them off yet than with any care that I gave them. They certainly seem to want to keep in touch with their former general practitioner, which is pleasing.
	The majority of care homes give an excellent quality of service and live up to the expectations of many of their residents.
	Nevertheless there are significant problems in the care home sector and we must not underestimate or belittle them. The trouble with tonight's debate is that although the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) was long on rhetoric and gave a passionate speech, to which I listened carefully, there was not a word about what his party would do in a similar situation. We heard only how terrible things were; there were lists of the numbers of places closing down and beds lost but not a word about what his party would do to address the situation, let alone to put it right.
	On the other hand, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) gave a thoughtful and careful exposition of the problems. I have great sympathy with much of what he said; many of the problems that he raised were entirely correct. At least he had some sensible questions and suggestions as to how we might address them.
	The debate is important and the subject is worthy of careful consideration; it should not be trivialised and turned into a party political rant. Sooner or later, many people in this place will probably need care of one sort or another in their old age. It is important to ensure that that care is of good quality.
	We have heard that there was a massive expansion of care homes in the 1980s. Indeed there was. I was practising then and an amazing number of care homes opened up all over the place. To paraphrase the slogan from a well-known supermarket, "Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap", those care homes, under the auspices of the previous Conservative Government, were packing them in and selling them cheap. Many of those homes were providing low quality care, in small and shared rooms, with low staff numbers, inadequate training and poor nutrition. The standards of care in some of those homes were horrifying. The bottom line was profit—massive profit for the owners, but not necessarily good care for the residents.
	That situation was not universal; many homes did a good job even then. However, the Government are trying to ensure that minimum standards are available for all residents, so that they can expect a minimum level of care wherever they go. The only way to do that is to raise standards, but all that we heard from the hon. Member for West Chelmsford was that we must not introduce higher standards too quickly; we must rein them back and dilute them. We never heard which standards he wanted to dilute and rein back or which ones he did not want to introduce. Perhaps he wants to put partitions across rooms to make them smaller. Perhaps he wants to do away with lifts. Perhaps he wants to reduce the quality of food available to the residents. All that we heard from him was how terrible things were and how much bureaucracy there was; neither he nor his party made a suggestion as to how we could address the problem.
	The vast majority of people who go into care homes do not actually choose to do so. Over the years, a large number of my patients have gone into care homes and I cannot remember one who said, "I am looking forward to going into a care home." The majority of them went into care because they or their families felt that there was no alternative. That is one of the problems that we have to face.
	Many people would much rather have a different type of care. They would prefer to be looked after by their own family in their own home, close to their friends. It is a tribute to the Government that they are at least prepared to address that issue and to try to provide care packages for people in their own home.
	As a GP, I think it is a tragedy when I occasionally have to send people to hospital, not because it is the right place for them but because it is the only place for them in the circumstances.

Richard Younger-Ross: The hon. Gentleman refers to care in the home. The Griffiths report, suppressed initially by the Conservative Government, suggested that there should be more such care. Care in the home was introduced in the 1990s—the Conservatives eventually adopted the recommendation—but it is restricted by cash. Social services departments throughout the country would like to establish more care in the home but they cannot afford to do so. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the Government should give more money to enable that to happen?

Howard Stoate: Yes. Of course more money should be going into the health service in general. Of course more money is needed for social services. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health told us that there would a real-terms cash increase of 6 per cent. next year and, hopefully, in subsequent years. Of course it is important that we put more money into the sector. Of course there must be more money for social services. Of course we need more money for hospitals. There is no question about that. We are suggesting more money, but we do not hear anything from the Conservatives about more money—and we hear very little from the Liberal Democrats, who are long on ideas but short on delivery. Of course more money is needed. Labour is finding more money, but it is important to spend it wisely and carefully.
	In our society, people are living longer, and that is right. Thanks in small part to people like me, people are living longer than they used to. Medical care is improving, as it should be. Many people will have a long and—I hope—reasonably fruitful old age, but they will need increasing levels of care.

Cheryl Gillan: The hon. Gentleman referred to the 6 per cent. increase promised by the Minister. Does he agree that the money will be swallowed up almost immediately. First, the increase in staff wages is approximately 3 per cent. Many local authorities have been offering care homes only half the inflation figure. Secondly, the regulations require more and more staff, reducing staff-patient ratios, so the money will be completely eaten up and there will be no improvement in care standards.

Howard Stoate: The hon. Lady makes a fair point and I would be much more sympathetic if she were able to explain how her party could deliver more than 6 per cent. At least the Government are putting in 6 per cent., although I agree that it will probably not be enough and that we will need to put in even more. The Conservatives do not plan to put any money into the sector, so how will they achieve improved standards?
	During the 1990s, the Conservative Government awarded the social services real-terms increases, year on year, of about 0.1 per cent. At least we have put in considerably more than that. I entirely agree with the hon. Lady that the increase will be swallowed up by increased staffing, higher care standards and improvements to the homes, but it is much more than we are being promised by the Opposition.

Kali Mountford: Does my hon. Friend agree that one way of making the best of the available money would be to pool resources between social services, the health service and other partners in local health trusts, as in the pilot schemes initiated by the Government? Is that not a better way forward? We are finding imaginative and innovative ways of spending money wisely on behalf of our constituents.

Howard Stoate: My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point—as always. When I was a member of the Select Committee on Health, we examined the relationship between health and social services to try to break down what we described as the Berlin wall between social and health care. We considered how health and social services could pool budgets and work collaboratively in the community to deliver care packages. We made some sensible suggestions that the Government were pleased to address and to adopt. My hon. Friend is right: we need more of that collaborative working because that is one of the ways that we can deliver better packages of care in the community.
	People are living longer and they will need longer periods of care. Local authority funds are stretched; their money will always be tight and we have to ensure that they can live within their budgets.
	The costs of providing decent care will always be high, however. The main thrust of my argument is to explore what we can do to reduce dependency on the care home sector. As a GP, when someone goes into hospital, I do not think it is a success—to a large extent I consider that a failure. When I see an elderly person who is not coping in their own home, I do everything that I can to institute a care package in that person's home. If the nursing and social care facilities are available we can set up that package in the majority of cases. That work is unsung; it is not heroic or recognised. It is not even necessarily counted statistically. However, a vast amount of work is undertaken in people's homes—small amounts of nursing or social care, help from relatives and friends and so on—which can make a massive difference to people and can prevent them from having to go into a care home.

Paul Burstow: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could develop that point. Does he agree that we need to make progress on preventive strategies? One of the main problems is that the cuts that local authorities have made in those low-level home help services have devastated the moves towards preventive care. People have to do more for themselves and are putting themselves at risk of falls; a person has mucky nets and falls off a ladder trying to change them. Every year, the NHS spends £1.7 billion on hip fractures. Surely, we could recycle some of that money to provide low-level preventive measures.

Howard Stoate: That is an excellent suggestion. The hon. Gentleman has made some sensible proposals during the debate. He is right. A person aged over-75 who suffers a hip fracture has only a 25 per cent. chance of regaining independent life. The majority of people of that age who go into hospital with a fractured hip will end up in institutional care, which is a great tragedy. With proper rehabilitation, intermediate care beds, step-down facilities and care packages in the home, many of them could be rehabilitated to their own homes, but often they are not.
	Often, an elderly person may be coping nicely—although perhaps on the verge of early dementia—but if they are taken away from their home and put into hospital, they become institutionalised in almost no time at all. It is completely impossible for them to go back to their own home because they have lost the ability to cling on to their home circumstances and their little networks. When that goes, it is the end of their chance to be rehabilitated.

David Drew: My hon. Friend is making a very carefully constructed speech, but no one has so far mentioned the other part of the tripod, which is, of course, housing itself. One of the major reasons why people return to hospital is not necessarily their mental condition, but the fact that they live in inadequate or inappropriate housing. The unsung heroes are often the home improvement agencies, which do very minor alterations, such as fitting handrails or handles on baths. That is where we need to invest. It is not rocket science and it does not involve huge sums, but steady investment in such work could make an enormous difference. Does my hon. Friend agree?

Howard Stoate: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. That is exactly the sort of thing that we need to do; it is cheap, easy and quick. It does not involve huge waiting lists or create huge problems. It can often be done in a matter of days or weeks, and it can make the difference. As I have said, when vulnerable people lose contact with their surroundings, many of them can never live independently again.

Angela Browning: As the hon. Gentleman is collecting good ideas, I hope that he thinks that it would be a good idea to return to a policy that was in place across the country when the Conservatives were in office: instead of delivering a month's block of frozen food to elderly people in their homes, more hot, cooked meals should be delivered daily. I have just had the experience of having no alternative but to place an elderly relative in a residential home simply because she could no longer cope with cooking a meal at home on her own. That is exactly the sort of thing that the hon. Gentleman is talking about in referring to the small things that make all the difference between life being sustainable independently and having to go into residential care.

Howard Stoate: I thank the hon. Lady for that very thoughtful contribution. I have a great deal of sympathy with what she says. I entirely agree that even a short daily visit from the meals-on-wheels service, providing a hot meal, can keep people more cheerful and gives them much more to look forward to each day than taking something out of the freezer and putting it into the microwave. Often the daily meal delivery is the only source of contact that an elderly person might get, tragic though that may sound. The daily visit from the meals-on-wheels service can make all the difference to the contact with the outside world.
	A two-minute chat about something of interest can make the difference. Small, simple things such as that save money. Although it may seem as though money is saved by giving elderly people a month's frozen food, the overall cost can often be much greater if they have to go into a residential home instead of looking after themselves at home.

Hugo Swire: The hon. Gentleman is entirely right, but there is a further issue: diet and nutrition. There is evidence to show that a lot of the people who are delivered their meals in advance en bloc simply do not feed themselves regularly during the period that the food is intended to last them. Of course that has long-term effects and probably throws them back into the system.

Howard Stoate: Again, the hon. Gentleman makes another useful point. What he suggests is sometimes the case, but one hopes that the food provided by social services is of nutritionally good quality. I am sure that most of it is, but the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point: it is important that elderly people get good nutrition because, again, that can make the difference. Some research that I have done certainly suggests that many people—in particular, vulnerable elderly people—suffer from a form of malnutrition. They may not be calorie poor, but they are often nutrient poor, which can make a big difference to their mental and physical functioning and their overall strength and well-being.
	Yes, the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but we cannot honestly blame the frozen food because many of those meals are of nutritionally good quality, provided that people also supplement them with other food of their own. Nevertheless, that intervention is useful because what matters is looking after people in their own homes and getting people through the hospital sector as quickly as possible and back into their own homes. That is the right way forward.
	In Dartford, Darent Valley hospital, which is brand new, has fewer beds than the hospitals that it replaces, so there is greater pressure on those beds. That hospital will flourish and provide a good service only if we can reduce bed occupancy lengths and have a faster throughput of patients. Often the problem, as many hon. Members will be aware from their own constituencies, is that too many of those beds are occupied by those whose discharge has been delayed. That effectively holds up the system, slows throughput, increases the mean length of occupancy and therefore causes problems in the acute and casualty end of the system. That is very difficult to manage.
	In the modern hospital sector, it is very important that hospitals are used for acute stays, lasting as short a time as possible, and that patients are moved through and into the community as quickly as possible.
	I am particularly pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Pond), who was in the Chamber earlier, and I have been working on trying to get a step-down, intermediate facility in his constituency that will provide 100 beds for exactly that reason. People can be moved from the acute sector to the intermediate sector for rehabilitation and step-down care before being transferred to a residential home or, preferably, back to their own homes. We need to encourage that sort of initiative, and I am pleased that the Government are supporting that type of project. It is important that we do so because we can take the pressure off the acute sector and the care home sector.
	Clearly, we have a problem. I am not trying to diminish the fact that we have to face up to the problem, but it is what we do about it that really matters. I can honestly say that I have heard nothing from Conservative Members about what they would do about it. They have not produced a single solution or said what they would do if they were in this situation. They can rant and rave; they can make a fuss about what we are doing, but none of them has yet produced a sensible proposition. Liberal Democrat Members seem to have a rather more thoughtful approach, and I have been pleased to hear much of what they have said. I hope that they will be able to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Hilton Dawson: My hon. Friend is praising them too much.

Howard Stoate: I do not like to butter them up too much. My hon. Friend is right; it has to stop somewhere, but let it be said that we are an inclusive party and, if any Liberal Democrat Member wants to cross the Floor of the House and join us in our endeavours, they will be made very welcome.
	The important thing is that society has to face up to the fact that we have a problem. People are getting older. The cost of care is increasing. Thankfully, standards of care are also increasing, which we must surely all applaud. It must be right that those standards increase. It must also be right that the staff are paid and trained better and that the facilities in some of those homes are dramatically better than they were 20 years ago. That has to be the way forward.
	Clearly, money must be found and we have to find a way for the system to provide that sort of care. Clearly, we have to balance permanent, long-term care in residential homes with care in the community. All those things must be taken into account. That is why I am so pleased about this debate, and I hope that we can throw around some of those ideas.

Richard Younger-Ross: We have heard a list of things to help reduce the need for people to go into care homes, but would there not be less pressure on those relatives and families who are trying to get a relative moved into a care home if there were more support for carers and a greater recognition of their role?

Howard Stoate: That is an excellent point. We need to give carers more support. The figures that I have seen show that carers save the country many billions of pounds a year because of the care that they provide. Of course that must be recognised. Often carers have given up their own careers, sacrificed their own family life and made huge difficulties for themselves by being carers, but many of them are pleased to have done so.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is important that we recognise the enormous contribution that carers make and that we support them as much as we can. We certainly need to give them all the help that we can. If we are to produce sensible solutions to the long-term care problem, all of us—carers, social services, the health service and the Government—have to work together, so I shall be pleased to hear what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say later in reply to some of my remarks.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next hon. Member to speak, may I make a plea for shorter speeches? Many hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye this evening, and I am afraid that an awful lot of them will be disappointed if speeches continue to be so long.

Cheryl Gillan: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) this evening. He seemed to spend a lot of his speech telling us that the Opposition had no suggestions, but he seemed to spend the other half of his speech agreeing that we were making fair points in our interventions. He can't have his cake and eat it. He seemed to be short on suggestions, but he seemed to understand the problems that were articulated so well by my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) in opening this important debate.
	Buckinghamshire is not the sort of place that one thinks of as being in great need. Mention of my constituency conjures up visions of leafy lanes and expensive housing: it is not the first place that springs to mind as having a problem. One would be completely wrong about that, however, since in common with the rest of the country at the moment, my constituency has an enormous problem with the sick and the elderly. Like other constituencies, Chesham and Amersham is suffering from a great crisis in the care homes sector.
	In Buckinghamshire, there is an association called the Buckinghamshire Association of Care Homes—BACH. I do not know whether the Minister has come across it, but it has established itself as a very strong voice for the sector. I would like to put on record my gratitude to Peter Hall, Peter Beard, Georgina Rixon, Paul Fletcher, Graham Faulkner and particularly Councillor Hugh Carey, who have briefed me and my colleagues in Buckinghamshire and who accompanied us to see the Minister earlier this year about a large catalogue of problems. The Minister was courteous, but, sadly, powerless to stop the disaster that faces us all.
	Over the past few years, there have been substantial changes in this sector: mounting labour costs, new standards and regulations, and a lack of confidence in the future viability of the care homes market. Most of those problems can be laid at the feet of Government. If I am generous with my interpretation, I would say that the Government have tried. In reality, however, they do not have the foresight, experience or expertise to realise the unintended consequences that their actions have caused.
	The national minimum wage, the working time directive, increases in pay awards to NHS nurses and staff shortages—of nurses, care assistants and domestics—are all wreaking havoc. The other day, a constituent told me that the care home in which her husband now lives starts putting residents to bed at 3 pm, as there are often only two staff to put 16 people to bed. What a humiliating ordeal for people in their final years.
	The new standards and regulations, as we have heard, have rolled over the care sector like a smothering blanket—new national minimum standards, codes of practice from the General Social Care Council and European legislation. Individually, they make great sense and afford protection, as many people have acknowledged. Put together over a short period, however, they have had a disastrous effect—forcing local authorities to withdraw from running residential care homes, and closing non-compliant homes that could not cope.
	The Minister may be aware that the National Society for Epilepsy is based in my constituency. It has written to me, stating:
	"The new national care standards place considerable pressures on care homes to upgrade accommodation."
	Indeed, the NSE has evaluated that it will cost some £15 million to put the establishment in my constituency into the condition now required by the Government. No one can argue with the aims of the new standards—they are highly commendable and have the best interests of clients at their heart. No money has been allocated, however, to enable care homes that are already under financial pressure to undertake the required improvements. As a result, care homes are closing because they do not have sufficient funds to enable them to meet the new standards. Other care homes are having to draw on reserves to enable them to undertake the work, but it is putting them under increasing financial pressure. As far as the National Society for Epilepsy is concerned, the £15 million that it must find will come out of money that could be spent on valuable research.
	In addition, the care standards require higher levels of training for care staff. By 2005, 50 per cent. of all staff will be required to have achieved NVQ level 2 or above, or be working towards that qualification—all at a cost to the organisation. That is in addition to a raft of other mandatory training on moving and handling, fire, food and hygiene. Furthermore, all housing managers will in future have to have a registered manager's qualification or equivalent. The Minister must appreciate that the training will be very costly and time-consuming. Again, nobody can argue against the desirability of having those standards. The demands that are being put on the sector, however, are virtually unbearable.
	The lack of confidence is only too apparent. Investors and corporates are increasingly viewing the care homes market as financially unstable and offering insufficient returns on capital invested. Many voluntary and charity operators are also adopting that view. There have been massive bed losses—whether the loss is 50,000 or a net loss of 19,000 is irrelevant. Not least because of this Government's drive to concrete over the south-east, existing home owners are finding that a higher value is placed on their land than on the business that they operate. Selling for housing development causes less sleepless nights and puts money in the bank. Private and voluntary operators run 85 per cent. of the care home market; if there is little incentive for them not to sell up and withdraw, what will happen?
	What has been the effect on the care homes market? Over the past five years, local authority fees have fallen below open market fees. In Buckinghamshire, the usual fee is running at approximately £100 a week down. The budgetary and central Government restraints will not enable our local authorities to purchase bed spaces at levels necessary effectively to reduce delayed discharges in hospital services such as respite and intermediate care.
	Many care homes survive because their private-paying clients subsidise the lower fees paid by the state-funded clients. However, voluntary sector and charity operators estimate that they subsidise local authority-funded clients in their homes by about £185 million, and that will prove to be a problem in itself. The Charity Commission has stated that charities such as the National Society for Epilepsy cannot use their funds to finance the care costs of local authority-funded placements.
	For many years, the NSE, like many other care providers, has consistently subsidised the provision of care services, because there has been insufficient funding from Government and local authorities and thence to care homes. In the case of the NSE, that has meant subsidies of about £1 million per annum in recent years. The Charity Commission has made it clear that such subsidies constitute an illegal use of funds, and that means that charities cannot use charitable funds to subsidise what is a statutory responsibility of the funding authorities.
	That has led the NSE to review its fee structure and, in turn, led to detailed assessments being made of all residents to ensure that individual fees realistically cover the level of care provided. The average increases are about 40 per cent, but I am sad to say that some are much higher. In some instances, 100 per cent. increases have had to be made. Throughout the year, the NSE has negotiated with local authorities across the country to introduce the new fees and it has largely been successful. It has skilled negotiators. However, the negotiations are still going on with some authorities that continue to claim that they are underfunded themselves.
	In some instances, the fee increases are for residents who have been at the NSE for many years—some for several decades. Some authorities have threatened to move residents of long standing by saying that they are able to provide care more cheaply elsewhere. But are such decisions being made in the best interests of the clients, or are they being made purely on the ground of funding? I hope that the Minister will answer that question, because some funding authorities appear to be using clients as pawns.
	According to the NSE, there is a lack of clarity between health and social services. Up to 70 per cent. of the subsidies made over recent years have been to cover the health needs of individual clients. Fees are currently paid by the local authority which, in turn, claims the health component from the NHS via the local primary care trust. However, there are no clear pathways as to how that funding can be acquired. It is evident from feedback from local authorities that there are inconsistencies in the response from the health authorities over what constitutes health care for individual clients. Clarification and clearer pathways are required.
	I also wish to mention fairer charging, because my local authority has raised the issue with me. The Government have required that all local authorities review their charging policies to ensure that those people on basic levels of income support plus 25 per cent. are not charged for non-residential services after 1 October 2002. The Government intended that to be cost neutral, but that is patently not the case and no transitional funding is available to help local authorities.
	Buckinghamshire county council has put in £1.2 million of local taxpayers' money into the base this year to offset the potential loss of income through implementing fairer charging and I have to tell the Minister that —may well not be enough. As a result, it is likely that some people will pay more than they currently do, and some will pay considerably more. Those on modest incomes will be hit the hardest. Carers may decide that enough is enough and ask social services departments to take over the responsibility for caring. What will happen then? That will add stress to the system, and high costs now may mean that many individuals will have insufficient provision for their old age.
	My county council is in crisis. Its standard spending assessment for the past two years was the second lowest in the country. In 1999–2000 and 2000–01, it was the lowest. Even in the year before—1998–99—it was the second lowest. Two nursing homes closed last year in Buckinghamshire—another may close shortly—and we lost 58 places as a result. Laing and Buisson says that by 2010 there will be a 16.9 per cent. increase in the demand for residential nursing places which by 2021 will be 51.8 per cent.
	Buckinghamshire has an average number of older people, but that is changing. There is some variation in demand in different parts of the county, but beds for the elderly mentally ill are in short supply across the area. Overall demand for care home places will increase significantly. In 2006, cumulative growth demand since 2001 will be 7.3 per cent., which compares with the estimated figure of 3.3 per cent. for the rest of the United Kingdom. The growth is projected to rise by nearly 20 per cent. by 2011. Despite that, we have the second lowest standard spending assessment allocation. The shortages of beds will be most critical in the Chiltern and Wycombe area.
	I could go on about the difficulties in gaining access to beds, their costs, the increasing delays in hospital discharges and the choices of which my constituents are deprived, but it is only fair to let other hon. Members speak. My constituents want dignity for the elderly in our community. The pressures on the county council, the charities, the residential homes and the families in my constituency are almost unbearable. I ask the Minister to halt the crisis and stop it deepening. I ask him to provide practical solutions to the catalogue of problems.
	I am a fair woman and will say that perhaps the Government's intentions have been good, but the consequences have been disastrous. Sadly, Ministers appear incapable of taking responsibility. I welcome the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), to the Front Bench for the first time tonight. I hope he will not add to the catalogue of shame created by his Government's policies on care homes and will rise above the policies that have been so damaging.

Laura Moffatt: Frankly, the speech by the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) was a disgrace. The debate is important and anyone with an interest in care of the elderly would not take his view. When I finished my training as a nurse, I chose care of the elderly as my specialism because it is the most challenging, difficult and fulfilling sector of nursing care. That is also true of ensuring the quality of life for older people in our community, but the Conservatives reduce that to a mere issue. The motion refers to fees and standards, but the hon. Gentleman's speech was only about standards.

Simon Burns: It was not.

Laura Moffatt: The hon. Gentleman should look at Hansard. I take issue with him on another matter, too. When asked what he would cut from care standards, he said that that was not what he was saying, but he cannot quote such sources and expect people to think that he is arguing for something else. Care homes are important and we need to have a reasonable debate on them. The debate has improved no end since he spoke, and hon. Members need to consider the problem properly.
	We are not daft: we know there are difficulties. We participate in and assist our communities by working with Age Concern and nursing homes. There is an increasing number of older people in our communities and we are trying to understand the problems that that creates. I welcome the fact that they have better health care and live longer and happier lives. If this debate had been entitled "The quality of life for older people," we might have heard a slightly better contribution from the hon. Gentleman.
	Even if some members of our community are having difficulties, there is another way to approach this debate, which is to be reasonable and honest, as we were in Crawley. We got together everybody in the care sector and talked about how we could improve the quality of life for older people, no matter whether they are in residential care or being cared for in the community. We included GPs and nurses from the primary care trust, representatives from the acute trust, social services, the Alzheimer's Disease Society, ethnic minorities, Health Watchdog, Age Concern and Carers UK, the son of an elderly person in a nursing home, a private care home manager and, to advise on benefits issues, Crawley borough council. I am glad to say that the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), also came to the conference.

Cheryl Gillan: What would the hon. Lady say to the Buckinghamshire Association of Care Homes, whose representatives came with me to see the Minister on 4 December to set out a catalogue of problems they are facing, since when not one thing has been done to alleviate any of those problems, which I have also set out today? My hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) has expressed very well the depth of anger in this country. The hon. Lady should appreciate that all in the garden is not rosy and people are deeply angry about what is happening.

Laura Moffatt: I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, I think. I hope that I was demonstrating that there is another way to achieve something better. I achieved something better through that conference, and I should like to explain how its achievements are taking pressure off our care homes. Among other things, the Government gave several million pounds to increase fees in West Sussex, which were a difficulty. We had been campaigning on that issue to ensure that the county council could pay adequately for people's care. There are ways to campaign, and it is not a solution for care home managers simply to say, "I want more money." We have to be a bit more active to achieve what we want in our communities.

Angela Browning: Like the hon. Lady, I have regular meetings in my constituency, and have done for the past 10 years, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) that the meetings held in recent years have signalled the crisis in care homes which we are now facing.
	If I asked the Minister to come to such a conference in my constituency, would Devon county council receive sums like those given to the hon. Lady's area?

Laura Moffatt: It is for the hon. Lady to make her own representations to Ministers, and I hope that she is able to achieve something different in her community—a more co-operative way of working that I have found helpful. I do not say that it has produced everything that I wanted, but it has certainly ensured that we work together more closely and more effectively.
	We looked at our priorities and at specific problems. Nobody is saying that there is no difficulty in the sector; that is precisely why we held the conference in Crawley. We were looking at solutions, not just shouting about the problems. Of course we had to listen to uncomfortable comments, and we talked about money.

Kevan Jones: Does my hon. Friend agree that the root cause of the problem was the previous Conservative Government? I was a councillor 10 years ago, and I saw the effects of their policies on the care sector. They brought in differential charging, which allowed private sector care homes to charge higher fees than local authority homes, and that led to the boom of profiteering at the expense of elderly people and forced local councillors to close residential sectors. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on that?

Laura Moffatt: I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. Anyone who was a state registered nurse at the time could tell us that they were approached by several people saying, "I've got some money to put into this nursing home—would you be keen to head it up?" There would be no investigations into how committed they were—it was just about getting a figurehead so that money could be made. Of course that situation had to end—it was ludicrous and inhumane. So we moved on to think about solutions, and we came up with worthwhile proposals to help to reduce the pressure on the care home sector. The pressure is not caused solely by care standards—it comes from our relatives and friends who want to ensure that they are getting the best. Anyone would think that some strange organisation was attempting to put pressure on nursing homes. We want to ensure that our people have the very best in care.
	One of the most important comments that the nurse from the acute sector made was that they have too many admissions from older people who have not had their medicines reviewed for a long time. They become unsteady on their feet and fall over, then—as my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) said—they become disoriented and find it difficult to go back to their homes. A lot of work is going on in Crawley to consider that issue with the PCT. The aim is to have a mobile team that goes around assessing older people in their own homes to ensure that they are on the right sort of medication. That is a practical approach to keeping people out of the care sector and reducing the pressure.
	We know from our constituencies about the suffering that is caused by dementia problems. That cannot be cured just by saying, "Everybody must go into residential care." That is not the answer. Carers want to keep their friends and family at home so that they can care for them there. So we considered respite care—using the care home sector for shorter stays, so that the carer could have a holiday while their loved one was cared for by others for a while. Giving carers the proper rest that they need helps to ensure that people can be kept at home. It is important to provide extra care homes—fantastic facilities that give people a front door and allow them to receive the care that they need, such as having a hot meal during the day, being properly bathed and being cared for around the clock. We have one in Crawley and more are to be provided. Having a health partnership manager has proved to be enormously helpful in reducing the number of delayed discharges from care. The post is jointly funded by the trust and west Sussex social services.
	All sorts of measures can be taken: improved joint working; increased capacity to deal with the increasing numbers of older people; more intermediate care; sustained funding increases that mean that is possible to predict increased finances, which we could never do in the past; improved discharge planning; and increased medical checks. There is plenty that we can do. Age Concern is setting up a new advice centre to help people to stay in their homes for as long as they possibly can.
	I shall sit down now to allow other hon. Members to speak. I hope that the rest of the debate reflects our understanding that there is plenty that can be done and that solutions can be found; we do not have to return to trotting out the line that there is just not enough money in the care sector. If we are imaginative, we can do it, and I hope that other hon. Members are prepared to be so.

George Young: The House was interested to hear the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) talk about the partnership approach that she helped to promote in her constituency. I am sure that the same is true in many other constituencies. However, I disagree with what she said about my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns). He made a fine and impassioned speech, and I hope that it is placed in residents' lounges in care homes around the country.
	One of the claims made by this Administration was that they would introduce joined-up government, but this area of policy is marked by serious discontinuity. We were told that the comprehensive spending review would introduce stable, generous and confident financial regimes for public sector services, but this area is riddled with one-off payments to meet continuing crises, with no sustainable solution in sight.
	We have been told that the way forward is partnership, but the Government have proposed entitling one partner to fine the other, although not the other way round, and have passed a Bill enabling one partner, the NHS, to take over the other partner, social services, at the whim of the Secretary of State. We have seen substantial and welcome increases in the budget of one partner, the NHS, at the same time as we have seen unsustainable settlements for the other, social services departments.
	The point where the two systems meet now has a name of its own: DTC—delayed transfer of care, which is an epitaph to policy failure. I want to speak from three perspectives—that of the NHS, social services and care home owners—and then outline a way forward.
	First, on the NHS, cash for change has not solved the bed-blocking problem. I shall quote from the minutes of the North Hampshire Hospitals trust of 11 June:
	"There are now 60 Delayed Transfer of Care patients that are also causing pressure on staff. The number of long term delayed transfer of care patients was a cause for concern."
	Those minutes concerned Basingstoke hospital, where bed blocking is still an issue. I asked the other major hospital that serves my area, which is run by the Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare trust, about its experience. Its bed-blocking figures are down from last winter, but at the same level as a year ago, totalling 59. If one looks at the reasons why, one sees that the problem is not going away.
	Last year, at the worst, there were 25 cases of bed blocking owing to lack of funding. That number has now gone down to one. However, there are now 17 bed blockers due to there being no vacancy in a nursing home, as against one a year ago. On top of those 18, there are three bed blockers because of no vacancies in residential homes. Thirteen are still looking for suitable placements and 12 self-funders either have no vacancies or are looking for suitable placements.
	Cash for change will not solve that strategic problem of undercapacity. A series of one-off payments simply builds up problems for the future. In Southampton, for example, the top-ups that the city paid for discharges from acute beds in 2001–02 out of cash for change produced an ongoing financial commitment into 2002–03, which means that there are no top-ups in the current year. So one blockage—shortage of cash—has been partially and temporarily cleared, but the logjam has simply moved to the next bend in the river: shortage of beds.
	That brings me to social services. Hampshire county council has a competent, caring department that is struggling to do its best with the resources available, but it is caught between the rock of the revenue support grant and the market realities of care home provision. I asked Hampshire county council how its expenditure on social services compared with its standard spending assessment. In 1988–89, it spent £1 million under its SSA. The next year, it spent £5.1 million over its SSA, and that has gone up ever since until this year, when the budget is £11 million over the SSA.
	I know that SSAs are simply a means of distributing grant, but if a council overspends on social services, it must either underspend on education or put up the rates faster than the Government would like. If the Government were open about the matter, they would recognise that they are increasingly vulnerable to the accusation of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others that they have got that part of the settlement seriously wrong.
	Of course we must develop intermediate care services in order to try to divert demand, and Hampshire county council is doing that. However, that is unlikely to be wholly effective, especially when one takes into account the most dependent and vulnerable older people who need nursing care. The demography time bomb is ticking away; the population of over-65s will increase by 3 per cent. by 2007, and the over-85s by 6 per cent. The demand for nursing home places continues to rise. Over the past three years, the number of publicly supported nursing placements has risen by 9 per cent.
	While demand increases, supply is falling. All the underfunding has affected the market. Between April 2001 and March 2002, 252 residential beds and 103 nursing beds net were lost to closures. In the previous year, the numbers lost were 89 and 75 respectively, so the losses are accelerating. Specifically in relation to nursing homes, there has been a reduction of 400 beds over the past three years—about 10 per cent. of total capacity.
	That leads me to my final ingredient: care home owners. They feel isolated and vulnerable. That wholly understandable emotion feeds through to their staff—who read the papers and listen to the radio—and of course to the residents and their relatives. There is now a crying need for stability and confidence, to which I shall return in a moment.
	I received an e-mail on Saturday from my constituent Mr. Chalmers, who lives in Tadley. He said:
	"What is causing care homes for the elderly to keep closing at the rate they are at the moment? . . . My elderly aunt aged 95 is now being forced to look for another home (3 in 2 years) as they keep closing and being sold off."
	Like other Members, during the election I visited most of the care homes in the constituency and, in preparation for this debate, I returned to one, a well-run, 21-bed home with an owner-manager. To get to the bottom of the figures, I asked her what the costs were. Allowing for no return on capital at all, and allowing the owner-manager £35,000 as salary, the weekly costs are £348 per resident—£273 is paid by Hampshire county council for the residents whom it sponsors, with self-funders paying £375. That is an indefensible cross-subsidy. I have no objection to residents on low incomes who are sponsored by social services being subsidised, but they should be subsidised explicitly from the public purse, not by their fellow residents and their families.
	The basic wages in the home are £4.50 an hour, with more for qualified staff. The owner would like to pay more, but she cannot. It is difficult to retain staff, given the buoyant labour market in North-West Hampshire. The owner is grappling with extra costs, such as those incurred by complying with new regulations on radiator covers. There are 42 radiators in the home, and she has had quotes of up to £10,500 to cover them. I am sure she will do so, but in the meantime she has had to build a new cupboard and buy more ringbinders to store the growing amount of paper she has to keep—circulars, regulations, staff assessments, residents' assessments and so on. I am sure that other Members have found that some owners are beginning to resent the growing number of better-paid people who check, supervise and monitor them and tell them how to run their business.

Hugo Swire: Has the person in my right hon. Friend's constituency suffered from the same problem as a care home owner in Exmouth, who contacted me to say that he and his wife, who own the home, and their daughter, the matron, have had a letter from the National Care Standards Commission, inviting them to apply to the Criminal Records Bureau for enhanced clearance. They have been given until 1 August to comply, otherwise they will have to close down, but they have been unable to get through to the bureau.

George Young: We must have sensitive and sympathetic application of the regulations if good people are to stay in the market. In Hampshire, there are homes that are having to remove en suite bathrooms to meet the space requirements, which cannot be right.
	The argument that the crisis is less of a crisis because implementation of some regulations has been deferred sounds plausible, but is invalid if we want to achieve a confident care home market. For those who are not going to meet the standards for whatever reason, it simply postpones the day of reckoning and ultimate closure. Those who would like to stay want to know that staying in the market will be worth while and that fees will rise, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) said.
	Many owners need funding to invest, but the banks read the newspapers and are growing more cautious. An inadequate revenue flow will not permit home owners to borrow the necessary capital to fund changes. Earlier this year, at the behest of the Department, the personal social services research unit carried out research into the reasons for closures. It concluded that a number of factors were at work, but describe two as being "decisive" in the owners' decision to close—low prices and the belief that they would not increase sufficiently.
	To sum up, there is a clear picture of continued increases in demand led by demography, coupled with a reduction in supply. Costs are rising and are likely to go on rising, driven by higher standards and better treatment of staff and residents. Insufficient funds, however, are being made available to meet market prices. The gap is far wider than the Government seem to recognise. The system survives by low returns on capital; indefensible cross-subsidy; underpaying of staff; moral pressure on families to top up funding; bed blocking; and delays in assessment.
	Although the Government pay lip service to the need for a healthy and well-run care sector, they have not done enough to secure it. They should make crystal clear what they expect from the sector in the long term and clarify the role of residential and nursing home care in the overall scheme of community care. They should make it clear that they want good people to stay in the sector and that they want more good people to invest in it. They should work out the likely level of demand, and then, in discussion with local authorities and the industry, put a price on what that is going to cost. That should then be factored into the SSA so that the resources are made available. In the meantime, the Government should abandon their policy of taking social services departments into the NHS. They are not running the NHS efficiently, and I do not believe that they would do it any better if they took on extra responsibilities for community care.
	It is legitimate to ask where the money should come from. I would shave it off some of the growth money aimed at the NHS. We simply cannot limp on as we are. That is not fair on owners, residents or staff, so I urge the Government to recognise the scale of the problem that confronts them and to come up with an effective response.

Hilton Dawson: It is a pleasure to take part in this important debate, not least because I do so under the eyes of 22,000 older constituents and a vigorously active mother, who will no doubt scrutinise every word that I say. I shall speak for only five minutes in order to allow others to get in, but it is a pleasure to take part in a debate which has featured some excellent contributions.
	It is worth pointing out that the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) was the first speaker from the Opposition Benches who, in stressing the important issues facing the private sector, started to move the debate along a little and to recognise that health and social care are a system and need to be a partnership, and that all elements of that partnership need to work together. That view has not come over from earlier Opposition speeches, which characterises the Opposition's approach to the matter. They emphasise one part of the system over the other parts and miss the essence of what the debate should be about.
	There are huge issues to consider and desperately important issues to resolve. In difficult circumstances, the Government are taking on the matter properly and working along the right lines. We have the national service framework for older people, which emphasises person-centred care, choice and respect for individuals. I believe that residential care can be a positive choice. I take issue with my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Dr. Stoate) about that.
	The Government have emphasised investment in major resources for health and social care, and high standards across the entire field of care—in people's own homes, in the community, and in residential care, nursing care and hospital. They have emphasised partnership across the various elements of the public sector—health, county and district councils, and the private and voluntary sectors. They have emphasised flexibility in meeting the needs of older people, irrespective of who provides the care.
	There are a host of issues involved, but the urgent imperative is to build a partnership culture, moving way beyond the sort of systems that were in place under the previous Government, to develop a robust working relationship between the public, private and voluntary sectors, and above all to place older people, their relatives and carers at the heart of the system, at the forefront of concern and at the centre of the debate.
	We have faced a terribly difficult situation in Lancashire over the past few months. Various speakers have referred to that already. It has been a traumatic experience for hundreds of older people in residential care and their families. I hope that we are coming through that now. The clear message that Lancashire county council must have got from listening to older people and from the work of inveterate campaigners, such as Bob and Ann Trafford of Poulton le Fylde in my constituency, is that the public sector services that the council provides are of very good quality and are highly valued by the people who use them.
	I hope that the consultation to which Lancashire county council will respond on 25 July will seek to build on those resources, build on partnership, use those resources flexibly and create a continuum of care based in the communities that need them, for the older people who require them. I think that the Government have laid down a very good structure for the future of care, that they are clearly inspecting what is going on and keeping their ears to the ground and that they are concerned to ensure that partnerships grow and develop. The work of the King's Fund, which I mentioned earlier, emphasises that progress is being made.
	We are talking about huge cultural change. We need to ensure that local authorities and health services show evidence of progress in terms of sustainable partnerships and improved services that impact on people's lives. I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and her colleagues in the Department of Health will maintain very close scrutiny of what is going on in Lancashire. On the basis of primary care trust areas engaging properly with the private and voluntary sectors, district councils and older people as firm partners, we have the opportunity to develop services and move on, but we need to maintain tight scrutiny of what is going on and to ensure that the system works in future and that it does so very well.

Nigel Waterson: I am delighted to have the opportunity to take part in this important debate.
	It is clear that we have twin national crises: the problem of care homes and the interlinked problem of bed blocking. We have heard about almost 50,000 beds being lost nationally, the problems of bed blocking throughout the country and the £1 billion black hole in funding identified by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, but I should like briefly to consider the local scene in East Sussex and Eastbourne in particular.
	Eastbourne has a high proportion of elderly residents, and we have the highest proportion of over-85s in the whole country. We have already been disadvantaged once by the standard spending assessment formula changes to which one hon. Member has referred. It is important to say, although it is almost a footnote in this debate, that care homes and nursing homes are a significant part of the local economy.
	The problem has been growing for years and the number of homes closing has grown steadily. As I said earlier, we have been bottom of the league table in East Sussex for many years in terms of our payments to the private sector. At the same time, under the Liberal Democrats, millions of pounds were wasted year after year on the ruinous cost of keeping open homes run by the county council purely for reasons of political dogma. I have raised that matter over and over again in the House. I first did so in a 1996 debate to which my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) responded as Under-Secretary of State for Health. Most recently, I secured a debate in late 2000 in which I raised many of these issues.
	We know that the homes have been hit by a triple whammy: the low rates paid by many councils; the funding of new regulations such as the minimum wage and the working time directive; and, of course, the requirements of the Care Standards Act 2000. The direct consequence has been the growth in bed blocking, or delayed discharges. The other day, I saw a press release from the Minister of State, Department of Health, the hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), in which she trilled about how wonderful things were and about how many older people would be able to leave hospital on time. That was not the picture that I saw when I recently visited my local district general hospital. It is doing all the right things; it has opened a medical assessment unit, which is doing very well, and has just officially opened a surgery assessment unit. However, all those efforts to make best use of resources are being distorted by the number of bed blockers in the hospitals.
	The very latest figures, which I received only today, show that across the East Sussex Hospitals NHS trust, there are currently no fewer than 131 bed blockers. That is an enormous number, especially in the light of the already stretched resources of the hospitals. In the winter of 1999–2000, there was virtually no bed blocking at all, so it is a relatively recent phenomenon, one entirely presided over by this Government and produced by their policies.
	I acknowledge that there has been some extra Government funding but it has not produced the desired effect. I am pleased that, under the leadership of Councillor Keith Glazier and his team, there is now much closer working with social services and other relevant agencies but the problem still shows no sign of improving; it seems to be continually getting worse.
	As I have touched on already, the problem we had over some eight years in East Sussex was the Liberal Democrat administration, which, as I have explained, squandered money on its own homes. One that has closed is Parker House in my constituency. Despite the dedication and care provided by the staff there, it was not meeting the old standards, let alone the new ones.
	By the time the Liberal Democrats were thrown out of office about a year ago, some 800 people had been assessed as needing care who were not receiving it. God knows how many had not been assessed. Now that figure is less than 200, and it is expected to be zero by the end of this month. For the information of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow), who spoke for the Liberal Democrats, the Conservative administration, despite a very tight budget, has increased its payments to the private sector by 8 per cent. above inflation in the current year.
	These are not just dry statistics. I remember the case of the elderly lady who contacted me and whose husband was at home dying from cancer. She could get no help at all in looking after him and lifting him; she damaged her own back. I finally managed to get social services to take an interest. I received a very touching letter from the lady saying that she was grateful for all my help but by the time they had come to talk about a package or putting her husband in residential care, he had sadly passed away. One wonders how many such cases there are of which we are as yet unaware.
	Only recently, we received the joint report on East Sussex from the Audit Commission and the social services inspectorate, which gave services zero stars. It included damning indictments of the previous Liberal Democrat administration—so damning in fact that a number of leading local politicians, myself included, have called for Councillors Tutt and Rogers to withdraw from public life as they were the ones who presided over that disaster. Typically, we have not received a word of apology or regret from either of those gentlemen. They have shown the same unwillingness to accept responsibility that they showed when they were running social services in East Sussex.
	As I have said, it is a matter not just of statistics but of people's lives—cases such as the one to which I have referred and others that we may never hear of. Those are the real reasons why those councillors should go. If they had a shred of decency or responsibility, they would have left by now.
	I am pleased to say that the new administration has put more than £4 million extra into the budget to support older people and to tackle hospital discharge, but the question that I still need the Minister to answer is how on earth the Government will tackle the fact that 131 people are still in hospitals in my area with no prospect of being discharged.

Kali Mountford: In the short time now allowed me, I would like to put the record straight. The hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) told the House that three care homes were closing in Kirklees, which covers my constituency. The House should know what is happening in Kirklees. There are 14 residential homes and three of them are indeed due to be closed, but what is going to happen to them bears some examination.
	One home is to be taken over by the Housing Corporation and will become 40 new flats for elderly people. It will include day services, a medical centre and all the ongoing help that those elderly people will need. The second will be turned into an intermediary care facility. Conservative Members have shown a great deal of interest in deferred discharge from hospital. People will be able to go into that centre to receive the assessment and help that they need after a period of ill health, an accident or a crisis in the home, and to move on to the sort of care that is most appropriate for them. So, to present this as a simple case of closure is inaccurate and wrong.
	The House should also be aware of other facilities that are available in the area. I have already mentioned Moorlands Grange, which my hon. Friend the Minister has visited, and which represents the way forward for integrated care for elderly people. We need to examine what is taking place in Kirklees, where a whole system approach is being used. Moorlands Grange is a resource centre where people can have an assessment of their needs, then—properly supported—move out into the community and back into their own homes. We have heard much from Conservative Members today, but in my constituency 453 people received intensive care in their homes last year; this year, the figure will go up to 533, and we have set a challenging target of more than 850 people in two years' time. We are seeing a growth in supporting people in their homes, and that is the way forward. Let us use our homes for what they are best used for; let us keep people in their homes, where they are most safe and secure and feel most comfortable.

Tim Loughton: I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), to his debut at the Dispatch Box, which we eagerly await. I look forward to many other opportunities to debate with him in the future. I am only sorry that he is making his debut in a debate on a serious matter on which his Government have such a lousy record.
	We have had a good debate, which was excellently and passionately opened by my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns). In contrast, the response from Labour Members was the usual fake indignation, as if it were a bit of a cheek for hon. Members to raise this issue again tonight. I was particularly surprised by the comments of the hon. Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt), who has expertise in this area. She knows how my own county of West Sussex has been coping exceedingly well in very difficult circumstances with one of the highest number of elderly people in the country, and how it received a two-star rating in the latest social services rating list.
	I am afraid that we heard the usual complacency from the Minister, as well. She talked about scaremongering and said that, apparently, there were "too many" care home beds in 1996, and that we have had only a "small" number of bed losses since then. I would hate to see what she regards as a large number of bed losses. This is a serious problem. The ageing time bomb that we all face is perhaps one of the most significant problems affecting our constituencies today.
	According to the Government Actuary, there were 7.8 million people over the age of 65 in 1996 and, by 2031, that figure will have risen by 60 per cent. The biggest rise will be among the over-85s, who receive no additional funding through the health authorities once they reach 75, but who incur many extra health costs. By 2007, for the first time ever, pensioners in this country will outnumber children under 16. A man aged over 65 has a 9 per cent. chance of requiring residential care for the rest of his life, or a 5 per cent. chance of requiring nursing care. For women, the figures are much higher: 13 per cent. and 37 per cent. respectively. That is why this is such a serious matter, and why we are quite deliberately raising it again in the House this evening.
	By any measure, the population is ageing. However much we may do to enable older people to live active lives in their own homes, with the support of carers, relatives and social services, we shall still require a big increase in the amount of residential care and nursing care beds. In fact, the Office for National Statistics estimates that the number of places will have to expand by about 65 per cent. over the next 30 years just to keep up. That is a very different picture from that painted by the Minister, who still thinks that there are too many beds—especially, apparently, in Redditch.
	It is absurd and bizarre that the trend in the provision of care home beds should be downward rather than rising to keep up with demand. We have heard the figures from Laing and Buisson: there were 575,000 care home beds five years ago; that figure is now down to 525,000, and 2,095 care homes out of 14,600 have closed across the country. We have heard stories, particularly from Ministers' own constituencies, of how beds are being lost week after week.
	It is particularly absurd and disgraceful that the Government should be so dismissive about the problem and that Members should apparently resent our raising it here. There was the disgraceful contempt shown by the Secretary of State for Health back in March when, during Question Time, he described elderly people as being
	"banged up in a care home".—[Official Report, 26 March 2002; Vol. 382, c. 691.]
	Equally alarming has been the complacency of the Prime Minister who, only last week at his own Question Time, brushed aside the concerns of a number of Members by claiming extra money was going in, and that new regulations would not come into force until 2007, so it was all sorted—and in any case the loss-of-beds figure was only 19,000. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford and others have demonstrated, that was absolute nonsense.
	Of course, to the Prime Minister the cry of "Geriatric residential facility, geriatric residential facility, geriatric residential facility" may not sound quite as sexy, or be as good a soundbite, as "Hospitals, hospitals, hospitals"; but such facilities are no less important to the bigger picture of health care.
	Where does the Prime Minister acquire figures allowing him to make his calculations? Laing and Buisson is the recognised leader in research on care homes and is retained by the Department of Health. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report mentioned by the Minister, which was published only last month, repeated its figure of 50,000 lost beds in five years, and it reiterated that care homes for older people were underfunded by more than £1 billion a year—a fact that adds to the woes of social services departments throughout the country about which we know so much.
	I believe, however, that the actual figure is worse. In my constituency, those running residential homes have decided that they simply cannot comply with the regulations and stay in business, and are therefore closing their homes. Alternatively, they are running down beds and not accepting new residents—but such homes are still counted as having full availability of beds until they have closed entirely, although those beds are not technically available. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Waterson), and also by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), all those numbers represent real lives. Of course being shunted around three homes in the space of two years will affect the health and well-being of elderly, vulnerable people.
	However, the situation is much more complex and worrying than either the Prime Minister or the Minister is willing to admit, and it does not help to reduce it to a dishonest, political numbers game. The problem is caused by a combination of factors: additional and in some cases excessive regulation, a shortfall in funding through local authorities, declining margins making the whole business less attractive at a time of rising property prices—a decline caused by increased costs of regulation, increased staffing costs and staff shortages—and pressure on social services, along with shifting responsibilities.
	Let us begin with the problem of regulation. The Care Standards Act 2000 started with good intentions, but has succeeded in driving some of the best homes out of business simply because they operate in older buildings that would prove prohibitively expensive to convert by 2007. That is certainly the case on much of the south coast. We heard about the rise in land values from my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan).
	Larger room dimensions, single occupancy, en-suite facilities and the radiator covers mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire are desirable—but the time and attention given to residents by staff, the conditions available to them, the quality of their food and how well their medication is dealt with are what count.

Richard Bacon: Does my hon. Friend agree with my constituent Mrs. Diana Self? Writing about her grandmother, she observed:
	"Elderly people don't care very much about ensuite bathrooms, single rooms or dimensions of lifts. They do care about friendly gentle care . . . and someone to hold their hand when they don't feel well. The outcome for her"—
	the grandmother—
	"seems uncertain—the move may kill her".
	Does my hon. Friend also agree that if the Minister's contention was correct, and if old people's choices were indeed at the centre of policy, there would be far fewer closures and far more people living happily in the same homes?

Tim Loughton: That is a good point. What makes the difference is whether people are in an all-round caring environment geared to provide a home life for elderly residents, or merely on a conveyor belt for those who are no longer able to look after themselves.
	I received an e-mail from a nursing home owner in my constituency who has been running her business for 20 years. She says
	"Care is the most important ingredient of a Care Home . . . Larger rooms wider doors etc will not improve care."
	How right she is. The problem is that the regulations are too inflexible. They do not differentiate between quality care homes and those that simply provide a service—homes that happen to have the right environmental specifications, but without the right care environment. To add insult to injury, Anne Parker, chairman of the National Care Standards Commission, warned owners who are unable to comply with the new standard to
	"start preparing an exit strategy."
	Some solution! On the shortfall in funding, a nursing home owner in my constituency pointed out that the suggested amount for a nursing home bed is £460, yet our local West Sussex authority pays the not untypical rate of £375. As she says:
	"We cannot continue subsidising these people."
	There are big differentials throughout the country. In Islington, for example, the Government's elderly residential standard spending assessment per resident is £917, yet in Kent it is £351. That leads to distortion in prices and to London boroughs placing their residents in care homes on the south coast, thereby pricing local people out of the market. Local people will be unable to live in care homes near their families and near where they were brought up, thereby adding to their vulnerability in old age.
	Some 80 per cent. of care home costs are staff costs. The minimum wage alone added £90 million to those costs; according to Sir Jeremy Beecham, of the Local Government Association, national insurance increases added £300 million; and BUPA added £50 million. Of course, none of that money was refunded through additional spending on the national health service. That will have a big impact on the 5 per cent. margin on which many independent home owners operate, and on their viability.
	Staff shortages and the consequent reliance on agencies is leading to great increases in the costs payable by such homes. For example, in the north of West Sussex, an unqualified 18-year-old can walk into a job at the Gatwick airport branch of Burger King and get paid £6 an hour. However, some care homes down the road can pay only £4.50 to £5. It is a no-brainer. An added problem is the bureaucracy associated with vetting by the Criminal Records Bureau. As a result, those who would work in care homes have to wait at least 13 weeks. In the meantime, they give up and go elsewhere.
	It is little wonder that many people in the care home business are giving up the ghost, taking advantage of rising property prices and converting their care homes into luxury apartments or back into family homes. Pressure is being applied to social services departments that are already suffering through the accumulated shortfall of £1 billion. Eligibility criteria are being tightened in most social services departments throughout the country. Two thirds of local authorities predict that they will be unable to look after the same number of residents next year as this year. For many authorities, it has become more a question of shifting responsibility between local authority departments and the health services.
	As the hon. Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) said, we certainly need greater working together, but the Government's only response is to fine local authorities that happen to have high bed-blocking figures. What impact does the hon. Gentlemen think that that has on working together in partnership? It is the good social services departments, many of which achieved a three-star rating, that have the greatest number of delayed discharges in their areas. That shows that the problem is not their fault, but one of the Government's own creation. The Government should solve it, but they are failing to do so.
	This is a crucial and complex problem that demands much more serious attention from Ministers on all fronts, rather than the complacency and contempt that we have seen from the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and the Minister. All hon. Members have an increasing number of elderly constituents, and however sophisticated we become at looking after people properly in their own homes, more care home beds will be needed over the next 30 years. A measure of how in touch we are with our constituents, and how effective we are on their behalf, is the concern that we show for our older citizens, translated into practical action to make their lives more comfortable and to allow them to live with dignity and choice.
	For all the show of fake concern and indignation by Labour Members, we have heard nothing from them to give a crumb of comfort to any of our elderly constituents that this Government are doing anything to address the problem. Yet again, we see a Government in denial, who claim credit for every success, but who say, "Not me, guv" in respect of every problem. This is a growing problem that will not go away, and they could make a start in grasping the magnitude of it by backing our motion.

David Lammy: I am grateful for the opportunity afforded to the House to debate this serious subject, but it is unfortunate that the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) chose to raise it in such an appalling manner. His tone was completely out of place and, frankly, he showed his disrespect for elderly people.
	As my hon. Friend the Minister made clear in her opening remarks, the Government intend to create a system of care that offers choice to those who need it. Opposition Members seem incapable of grasping that point and we have seen tonight that they are preoccupied with scaremongering.
	It is worth reminding ourselves how we got into this position. It is important to remember that we experienced a significant but unplanned and unmanaged expansion in the independent care home sector as a result of the use of an uncapped Department of Social Security budget throughout the 1980s. That led to the unnecessary and completely avoidable admission of many older people and others into institutional care. From what Opposition Members have said, it is clear that they believe that elderly people are always best placed in institutional care. They do not understand that there are many modes of care—

Simon Burns: We do understand.

David Lammy: Why then did no Opposition Member choose to mention care at home, and the role of nurses, sisters and others?

David Cameron: rose—

Tim Loughton: rose—

David Lammy: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron).

David Cameron: Does the Minister think that there are too many residential care homes or too few?

David Lammy: The hon. Gentleman misses the point. [Interruption.] I intend to assist him with the answer in the course of the debate, if he will let me make some progress. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. May I call for some calmness on both sides of the House?

David Lammy: There are many modes of care and ways of entering care for our elderly population, and that is the major thrust of the Government's policy. I agree that some people will of course always need residential care, and we need to ensure that they get it. However, the Opposition have been all too quick to scaremonger about the crisis in the home sector. Their approach is at best cynical and at worst schizophrenic. Much of what they talk about requires investment in the NHS and our social care system, but how did they vote on the Budget? They voted against that investment.

Angela Browning: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I have a feeling that it is not a point of order, but I had better hear the hon. Lady.

Angela Browning: Is it right for people with mental health problems to be abused in that way by a Minister from the Dispatch Box?

Mr. Speaker: The Minister is in order.

David Lammy: Care homes have always closed. The Opposition choose to ignore the fact that new homes are opening and existing homes are expanding. Some 31,000 new beds have opened since 1997. That is a 4 per cent. drop, which roughly matches the figure in 1997.
	The Conservatives' focus is in the wrong place. We need to move the debate on from the sterile argument about numbers to the challenge of delivering a full range of social care services to meet people's needs. There is undoubtedly a need for residential and nursing care, but it is one of many options.
	We are supporting more people to live at home than in the past. For every 1,000 older people, 82 were supported to live at home in 1998–99 and by 2000–01 the figure had risen to 84. That includes people receiving support in the form of home care, community equipment, home adaptations and repairs. My hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Laura Moffatt) talked about partnership and the ways in which care is provided in the home in her constituency. The number of contact hours has increased.

Cheryl Gillan: What would the Minister say to my constituents in National Society for Epilepsy homes who have lived in them for many years but may face relocation? Will he guarantee that no constituent of mine will be forced into relocation from NSE homes by the measures introduced by the Government?

David Lammy: It is up to the local authority to talk to inspectors and others. I cannot guarantee what the Conservative local authority does in the hon. Lady's patch—that is not my job.
	According to the independent care consultants, Laing and Buisson, there has been a drop of about 19,000 places since 1997, which is a far cry from the figure of 50,000 that some hon. Members were bandying about but which Front-Benchers have chosen to drop. [Interruption.] Oh, they have not dropped it. That is another example of schizophrenia. We have no policy from the hon. Member for West Chelmsford, who cannot decide what he has or has not said.

James Gray: Will the Minister give way?

David Lammy: Time is pressing, and I should like to make some progress.

James Gray: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Minister is not going to give way.

David Lammy: The hon. Member for West Chelmsford made an appalling attack on minimum standards for elderly people. It was quite unbelievable. What do Conservative Members have against minimum standards? They cannot be compassionate Conservatives without believing in some minimum care. It is a case of the emperor having new clothes but not bothering to check the quality.
	Minimum standards are important. Conservative Members claim that the care home sector has been thrown into crisis by the introduction of the national care standards. That is an extraordinary suggestion. Do they oppose the introduction of training for staff in care homes? [Hon. Members: "Yes."] Do they oppose medicine management for all and personally managed care plans? [Hon. Members: "Yes."] Clearly they do. So if the answer is yes, they oppose—

Tim Loughton: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Lammy: The hon. Gentleman did not give way during his speech. I have given way twice and I should like to make some progress.
	If the Conservatives' answer is yes, they oppose the introduction of standards to ensure that users, carers and relations can have confidence in the quality and safety of the care that older people receive. Before the Care Standards Act 2000, care homes were regulated by 150 authorities, often with different standards. In the absence of proper checks on individuals, there were many, many cases of the most appalling abuse. Members will be aware that the most appalling physical and sexual abuse was committed in some of our care homes during the 1980s and 1990s.
	Standards will guarantee the best care for the elderly in our community.

Andrew Selous: Will the Minister tell the House what is compassionate about a standard that causes a home to close when none of the residents needs the introduction of that particular standard? What is compassionate about that?

David Lammy: Homes are not closing as a result of the standards—[Hon. Members: "They are."] Hon. Members raised concerns about certain environmental standards and we have made it clear that those standards do not have to be imposed until 2007. We are open to looking closely at that matter.
	Tonight, the Opposition have tried to delude us into thinking that they have suddenly become the party that cares about the vulnerable. That journey began when the Leader of the Opposition turned up in the inner city, in Hackney, to take his path of compassionate conservatism. After 18 years of Tory rule, no Labour Member will take lectures from the Opposition on that.
	We remember the 2 million pensioners who were living in poverty on £68 a week when we came to power. We remember the VAT on pensioners' fuel—[Interruption.] We also remember—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House is far too noisy.

David Lammy: We also remember the Opposition presiding over a growing gap between the poor and better-off pensioners between 1979 and 1997, when the incomes of the best-off fifth of pensioners rose by 80 per cent. while those of the worst-off fell by more than 30 per cent. We shall not accept lectures from Opposition Members about the elderly.
	We are certainly not going to take lectures from the Opposition about investment when they voted against the investment that we intend to make. We are proud of our record in helping the elderly and the vulnerable. We are proud of our free eye tests for the over-60s, which the Tories had abolished. VAT on fuel has been cut, helping pensioners to heat their homes. We are proud of our free television licences and other things.
	On the care sector, when the Government—

Patrick McLoughlin: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question.
	The House divided: Ayes 184, Noes 320.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):—
	The House divided: Ayes 312, Noes 185.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House welcomes the Government's strategy for modernising social care services through unprecedented real terms increases in resources; condemns the Opposition for opposing this investment; welcomes the improved joint working between the NHS, social services, and the independent care sectors which has seen a reduction in levels of delayed discharges of over 1,000 since September 2001; recognises Government action to provide real choice for older people in long term care and to place a greater emphasis on users and patients in the design and delivery of services; notes the confusion, inconsistency and lack of independence in previous registration and inspection regimes and welcomes the Government's national framework for standards and quality; further notes that the extra funding is enabling local councils to increase fees paid to care homes and that providers are continuing to open new homes; and recognises that the number of people receiving intensive home care support is increasing, enabling more people to live independently at home for longer.

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:
	Appropriation Act 2002
	National Insurance Contributions Act 2002
	Industrial and Provident Societies Act 2002
	Tax Credits Act 2002
	Employment Act 2002

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

That the draft Pathogens Access Appeal Commission (Procedure) Rules 2002, which were laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Kemp.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Supreme Court of England and Wales

That the draft Court of Appeal (Appeals from Pathogens Access Appeal Commission) Rules 2002, which were laid before this House on 12th June, be approved.—[Mr. Kemp.]
	Question agreed to.
	Ordered,
	That the Motion in the name of Secretary Tessa Jowell relating to the revised Treasure Act 1996 Code of Practice shall be treated as if it related to an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation) in respect of which notice has been given that the instrument be approved.—[Mr. Kemp.]

PUBLIC TRUSTEE (LIABILITY AND FEES) BILL [LORDS]

Motion made,
	That, during the proceedings on the Public Trustee (Liability and Fees) Bill [Lords], the Standing Committee on the Bill shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it shall meet.— [Mr. Kemp.]

Hon. Members: Object.

ADMINISTRATION

Ordered,
	That Dr. Nick Palmer be discharged from the Administration Committee and Julie Morgan be added to the Committee.— [Mr. McWilliam, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

GLENN HOWARD

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kemp.]

Tom Brake: I welcome the opportunity for this debate, which is inspired by the very tragic and totally unnecessary death of Glenn Howard. I have been involved with his case for four years, and my sole purpose today is to call for a public inquiry into the circumstances of his death. As will become apparent, investigations to date, which have lasted for nearly four years, have proved unsatisfactory. Many questions have been left unanswered, leaving Mr. Howard's family to endure unnecessary suffering.
	A public inquiry would achieve two valuable aims. First, it would allow Mr. Howard's family to ascertain exactly what happened and to piece together those last few important moments of his life, thereby ending their long-standing torment. Secondly, equally importantly, a public inquiry is required because of the wider issues raised by Mr. Howard's case. It is imperative that an evaluation of police procedures and protocols dealing with the treatment of vulnerable individuals such as those with mental illness takes place. In particular, police procedures dealing with the training of officers, restraint techniques that are employed and the treatment of vulnerable individuals while they are in police custody need to be reassessed. It is hoped that a public inquiry will lead to the proposal of positive solutions, affording increased public confidence in the police and the development of a system whereby tragedies such as that of Glenn Howard can be prevented.
	Glenn Howard was a 47-year-old musician who had a long history of mental health problems. He enjoyed not only his music, but tending to his tropical fish, which he kept in a fish tank at his flat. He was described by those who knew him as a very likeable individual—possibly eccentric, but with no previous history of aggressive or violent behaviour. From time to time, Glenn Howard was detained in Sutton hospital under section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983, which allows for mentally impaired individuals to be detained for short periods to alleviate or prevent the deterioration of their condition. In hospital he received the invaluable support and medication that was needed. While he was being detained at the hospital, it was not uncommon for him to abscond to return to his flat and feed his fish. After doing so, he would often return to the hospital of his own volition.
	On 8 December 1997, Glenn Howard was detained at Sutton hospital for the 13th time. Two days later, on 10 December, hospital staff noticed that Glenn had absconded. A nurse contacted Sutton police station to report him missing and asked the police to return him to the hospital. Two officers, empowered under the Mental Health Act, responded to the call. They visited Sutton hospital, where it is claimed that nurses informed them that Glenn was not a violent individual, and that if they encountered any difficulties, hospital staff should be called to assist. At two minutes past eight that evening, the two officers attended Glenn Howard's home address. There they were let into the block of flats by a caretaker, where they met Glenn. Witnesses described him at the time as wholly co-operative with the officers. The officers then proceeded to leave the block of flats.
	It is at that point that the story becomes unclear. The two officers claim that on leaving the premises, Mr. Howard tried to escape. It is claimed that a violent struggle took place. Nine other officers had been called to attend. During the struggle, Glenn Howard was restrained in a bear hug for up to four minutes, which had the effect of constricting his breathing. He was hit with a police baton and placed face on the floor, and his legs were crossed behind him. Officers then restrained him in handcuffs, first to his front and then behind his back.
	At no time during the struggle were the officers who were called to assist informed of Glenn Howard's mental impairment. At some point officers noted that Glenn had vomited, but no action was taken in response. Instead, he was carried face down by five police officers and forcibly placed in the back of a police van.
	Contrary to initial instructions, Mr. Howard was not returned to hospital. Instead, he was conveyed to Sutton police station. On arrival, Glenn's mouth was seen to be open and his head lolling backwards. He was rushed to the accident and emergency department of St. Helier hospital, where nurses attended to him. He was unconscious and hospital staff noted that he had turned blue and was not breathing. Attempts to resuscitate Mr. Howard were made. Sadly, all was futile; he never regained consciousness. His existence was reduced to a permanent vegetative state, and he was kept alive until 1 January 1999 only by the assistance of a ventilator. Later, doctors stated that Mr. Howard had not been breathing for up to 10 minutes before his arrival. His brain had been starved of oxygen for four minutes and it was said that the restraint techniques employed by the police were likely to have been a significant factor in his death.
	The circumstances surrounding Mr. Howard's death posed several questions. Why were such restraint techniques employed? Why had the police not called for hospital assistance? Why were the other officers who were called to attend not informed of his condition? Why was Mr. Howard not taken straight to hospital? Perhaps the most important question is this: legal jurisprudence dictates that a mental patient detained in circumstances such as Glenn Howard's commit no criminal offence in absconding. Why was he then treated like an ordinary criminal rather than with the sensitivity that is and ought to be required when dealing with vulnerable individuals who are mentally unwell?
	I find it astonishing that those questions have remained unanswered to date. The great difficulty experienced by Glenn Howard's family in acquiring elementary information about the circumstances of his death has made matters worse.
	I am calling for a public inquiry because the inquest into his death revealed several outstanding issues. There is legitimate worry over the fact that the testimony supplied by officers contradicts vital evidence supplied by independent witnesses. One example is that police officers continue to deny being informed by hospital staff that Mr. Howard was not of a violent disposition, and that the hospital should be called to assist in the event of any difficulties. Officers have also failed to supply consistent and accurate details on the timing of events as they unfolded. I know that that is of great concern to Glenn Howard's family. The discrepancies are not acceptable and have resulted in unnecessary agony.
	In fact, such was the nature of the discrepancies that the jury at the coroner's inquest ignored the coroner's direction not to comment on the circumstances of Mr. Howard's death. Confined to a finding of accidental death, the jury unanimously commented that
	"excessive restraint followed by an immediate and subsequent neglect of medical care"
	and attention was the cause of Glenn Howard's death.
	In further recognition of the inadequate handling of the case, disciplinary proceedings behind closed doors commenced under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority, which found that one officer had failed in his duty to monitor Mr. Howard.
	My call for a public inquiry goes beyond seeking to account for those unanswered questions. An inquiry will inevitably go beyond the scope of Glenn Howard's death, as it is in the public interest to ensure that adequate training and techniques are employed by police officers when dealing with vulnerable individuals. For far too long, that has been a neglected area of public policy, which has led to the undermining of public confidence in the police and accounts for some of the 614 deaths of vulnerable individuals in police custody since 1990.
	Never has there been more need to evaluate the protocols in place and their adequacy to deal with mental patients who abscond. I am supported in my cause by the organisation Rethink, formerly the National Schizophrenia Fellowship. The current review of mental health legislation allows an opportunity to adopt a fresh approach to vulnerable individuals. It is hoped that positive solutions can be found to increase police awareness and training for dealing with the mentally ill. Restraining techniques should be examined constructively and modified.
	It is hoped that the scrutiny demanded of a public inquiry will lead to the creation or review of nationally agreed protocols backed by the Home Office, which would govern any interaction between the police and mentally ill patients. It is envisaged that nationally agreed protocols on dealing with people suffering from mental illness and other vulnerable individuals who abscond from hospital will require health and social care staff to take lead responsibility for the return of mental patients. Glenn Howard's death demonstrates that there are genuine concerns about the extent to which mental health services have become reliant on the police to implement mental health legislation.
	New mental health legislation must ensure that, where possible, the mentally ill and vulnerable individuals are dealt with by people with specific expertise or, alternatively, family members. Police involvement and restraint techniques should be minimised. When police involvement cannot be avoided, measures must be in place to ensure that officers adhere to nationally agreed training standards when dealing with vulnerable individuals. Those standards should include regular refresher courses.
	In the aftermath of Glenn Howard's tragic death, the Metropolitan police have implemented new procedures to deal with individuals with mental illness, which I welcome. Such measures, however, must be implemented nationally, not just within the Metropolitan police area. For Glenn Howard's family and other people affected by similar cases, a public inquiry can bring closure, identify failings and establish solutions.
	It is worth contrasting Glenn Howard's case with that of another constituent who, after failings by the local authority and a local NHS trust, was placed, with no financial assistance, in a bed and breakfast. He left without anyone noticing and, tragically, was found dead from hypothermia on a local common. After a long battle, and with much sadness and regret, his family have been able to close that chapter in their lives because the local authority and the trust accepted that mistakes had been made, apologised in writing—admittedly, the apology was extracted after much delay—and agreed an action plan with the family of the deceased. They have been able to monitor the progress of the plan; they can see that lessons have been learned from that tragic event and that measures have been implemented greatly to reduce the risk of such a sad event reoccurring.
	That has not happened in Glenn Howard's case. Glenn Howard must not be just another statistic—lessons must be learned from his untimely death and his family must have their confidence restored. I trust that in learning of the manner in which he was treated, the Minister will back my call for a public inquiry into his death.

Hilary Benn: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) for raising this case in an Adjournment debate; for the manner in which he presented his concerns; and for his diligence on behalf of Glenn Howard's family, to whom I offer my sincere personal condolences on their great loss. Every death in police custody is a death too many and an individual tragedy. It is right that every possible step should be taken to ensure that people are properly cared for in police custody.
	For the benefit of Members present in the Chamber, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington set out the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Glenn Howard. Following those events, the Metropolitan police referred the matter to the Police Complaints Authority for supervision of the investigation into Mr. Howard's death, and Detective Superintendent Curtis was appointed as the senior investigating officer. Following consultation between the coroner and the Police Complaints Authority, the file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for its consideration. The CPS decided that there should be no further action for criminal proceedings.
	At the subsequent inquest, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death. However, the inquest jury added that
	"Glenn Howard was subjected to excessive restraint followed by an immediate and subsequent neglect of medical care and attention which resulted in a brain injury, as a result of which he later died".
	In line with its policy, the Crown Prosecution Service then reviewed the decision that it had taken previously, but remained of the view that none of the police officers should face criminal proceedings.
	Following receipt of the investigation report, the Police Complaints Authority—which eventually expressed itself satisfied with the quality of the investigation—directed that four officers face disciplinary charges for neglect of duty in relation to their failure to provide the necessary care to Glenn Howard and, in the case of one officer, to monitor his condition and render care to him in the van on his way to the police station and the hospital. The PCA initially recommended to the Metropolitan police that one officer face a disciplinary charge of using excessive force. Owing to resistance from the Metropolitan police and advice from counsel, the Police Complaints Authority decided against such a charge.
	However, at a disciplinary hearing held in April 2002, two parts of one charge were proved against one officer in that he failed to monitor Glenn Howard's condition after he became his responsibility, and failed to make any oral or visual inquiry of Glenn Howard's state of health. The officer was cautioned. All other charges were dismissed.
	The Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, lan Blair, wrote to Barry Howard, Glenn Howard's brother, on 10 May this year to acknowledge that the level of care that Mr. Howard received from an officer monitoring his condition was "found to be wanting." Mr. Blair also extended the sympathies and sincere regrets of the Metropolitan police to Mr. Howard's family.
	I am aware that, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington mentioned, Barry Howard, Glenn's brother, has raised the issue of time discrepancies between the police officers' accounts and other police documentation, particularly the computer aided dispatch—CAD—command and control system. I am also aware that Barry Howard has asserted that his brother was the victim of an unprovoked attack by the police officers.
	I understand that a meeting was held in May between Barry Howard and lan Bynoe, of the Police Complaints Authority, supported by police officers from the Metropolitan police service's directorate of professional standards to explain how the timings were obtained. Barry Howard was informed that timings on the CAD message related to when information was entered on the system, not necessarily to when events happened. Although there were differences between the CAD and the police officers' accounts, no evidence was forthcoming to corroborate a suggestion that events were other than described by the officers.
	It is also the case that neither the investigation nor the subsequent inquest proceedings produced any evidence which supports the assertion that Glenn Howard was the victim of an unprovoked assault by police officers.
	I very much regret that the completion of the case has taken so long. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware, a number of factors have contributed to the delay. They include the following: the retirement of the original investigating officer on ill health grounds, which meant that he had to be replaced; Glenn Howard's death more than a year after his arrest meant that the original investigation had to be supplemented by further investigation; an inquest had to be completed; following the inquest, the CPS rightly had to consider the file and the inquest evidence; following the CPS decision not to prosecute, the Metropolitan police had to consider whether disciplinary action was necessary; the Police Complaints Authority disagreed with the proposals of the Metropolitan police and had to direct disciplinary action, as I have described; and the Police Complaints Authority member who initially handled the case and made recommendations to the Metropolitan police left in March 2001, which meant that another member had to familiarise themselves with a lengthy and complex matter in order to take it forward. As I said, I regret that very much, but as a result it was not possible for the PCA to send its concluding letter to Barry Howard until the disciplinary hearing was completed in April.
	I note that the hon. Gentleman called for a public inquiry into the death of Glenn Howard, but I have to say that, having regard to all the circumstances, I am not persuaded that that would take us any further forward, given the investigation conducted by the Metropolitan police under the supervision of the Police Complaints Authority, although I want to return to a related point in a moment. That is not to say, however, that there are no lessons to be learned from what happened to Glenn Howard; there are, and I now wish to turn to them.
	The most important thing that I can tell the hon. Gentleman and Mr. Howard's family is that we are proposing to change procedures for handling and investigating complaints against the police by introducing the Police Reform Bill. The Bill will replace the Police Complaints Authority with a new body, the independent police complaints commission. Any death involving the police or other serious incidents of possible police misconduct will be referred to the IPCC for it to make a decision on how the case should be investigated. While the IPCC will use its judgment in making that decision, a case of this nature would almost certainly lead to an investigation undertaken by its staff, independently of the police.

Tom Brake: I thank the Minister for giving way. He may be about to deal with this point, but can he give any guarantees or outline as to how long such a process would take? One of the key concerns in this case is the duration of the investigation and the possibility that a body of evidence might have been lost in the four years or more since it began.

Hilary Benn: I entirely understand the hon. Gentleman's point about the time that has been taken, which is why I have expressed my regret.
	In comparison with the current system for investigations under the Police Act 1996, the Police Reform Bill will ensure greater involvement of the complainant or next of kin in the investigation; greater openness in disclosing materials to the complainant or next of kin; more effective powers to direct that disciplinary charges be laid against police officers; the ability to attend the disciplinary hearing and, if the IPCC representative chooses, the option either to present the case against the officer himself or herself or instruct counsel to do so; and, in relation to IPCC investigations, greater independence of the person carrying out the investigation.
	Better communication with the family will be achieved by placing a statutory duty on the IPCC and the police to keep the complainant informed throughout the investigation and also by allowing the investigation report to be disclosed to the complainant, subject to a sensitivity test. In this case, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, and as the law currently stands, the disclosure of the report is entirely at the discretion of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, but in view of the nature of the concerns that he expressed, I will convey them to the commissioner in drawing his attention to this debate.
	While we await those new arrangements, other changes are also occurring. First, within the Metropolitan police, the internal investigations command now has responsibility for the investigation of deaths following contact with the police. The specialist investigations unit now has four teams on call 24 hours a day to respond to and investigate critical incidents. A detective chief inspector who acts as the senior investigating officer leads each team. All the senior investigating officers have attended a development course that includes training in family liaison, exhibit handling and other investigative and detective skills.
	Secondly, as I think the hon. Gentleman acknowledged, last year, the Metropolitan police service launched two initiatives aimed at further reducing the number of deaths. It recruited a nursing manager and six nurses to work in the custody suite at Charing Cross police station to advise custody officers, as well as those undertaking risk assessments, of points that they should bear in mind in relation to detainees. It also produced a training video highlighting some of the medical emergencies that can arise in arrests, such as when prisoners swallow drugs or struggle when restrained.
	Thirdly, police forces across the country are taking a wide range of actions to seek to reduce deaths in custody. Those include safer custody facilities, improved training, closed circuit television monitoring and an emphasis on better care, assessment and supervision of detainees.
	Fourthly, because since April 1996 there has been a small number of deaths in police custody where restraint may have been a factor, there has been a continuing review of appropriate restraint techniques. Police officers are trained in a number of restraint methods but must use those only within the law: when they have a power to do so and when it is reasonable and necessary to do so. In addition to the skills training they receive, officers are taught about the relevant law and told that they may be called upon to justify their actions.
	Finally, in relation to the last point that the hon. Gentleman raised, steps are being taken to seek to improve police practice in relation to mentally ill individuals. The Home Office, the Department of Health and the Association of Chief Police Officers are considering the development of national protocols covering the relationship between the police and health services in dealing with the mentally ill, a point that the hon. Gentleman rightly raised.
	The current review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 codes of practice is seeking to strengthen further the protection for mentally ill detainees, particularly in terms of assessing their vulnerability and fitness for interview. In addition, the review of the Mental Health Act which is under way recognises that police cells are not generally appropriate places for assessing whether a person needs medical treatment.
	In conclusion—

Tom Brake: As the Minister is about to conclude, I ask a further couple of questions. First, he said that consideration is being given to the development of national protocols. I wonder whether he can give me any idea of the time scale over which that consideration is to take place. Secondly, I was not certain what the Minister said—is he going to ask the commissioner to make the report available to me?

Hilary Benn: On the second of those points, under the law as it currently stands, it is entirely at the discretion of the commissioner as to whether to make the report available, but I have undertaken to draw to the attention of the commissioner the points that the hon. Gentleman has understandably made in relation to this case.

Tom Brake: May I rephrase it then? Will the Minister be suggesting to the commissioner that it would be appropriate perhaps for him to release the report in this case?

Hilary Benn: In drawing the attention of the commissioner to this debate, I will convey to him the concerns that the hon. Gentleman has expressed. No doubt the commissioner will also notice, as I am sure he already has, the change in the law that we are in the process of making in the House to change completely the arrangements for the disclosure of information, so that the presumption will be that the information will be disclosed, subject to the sensitivity tests that have been drawn up and are contained in the Bill. I am sure that the commissioner will carefully consider all the points that have been made in the debate.
	On the second point that the hon. Gentleman raises about the time scale for the development of national protocols, I cannot answer that question this evening but I undertake to write to him about that to give him further information.
	I am very sorry about what happened to Glenn Howard, and I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman extended my sympathies to the family as they try to come to terms with their terrible loss.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at six minutes to Eleven o'clock.